


It's a Wolfy World

by McSpot



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Buffalo Sabres, Columbus Blue Jackets, Florida Panthers, M/M, Nashville Predators, San Jose Sharks, Vancouver Canucks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-16
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-05 13:36:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 70
Words: 177,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13388919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/McSpot/pseuds/McSpot
Summary: A compilation of all of the stories in my werewolf AU that have previously been posted on Tumblr.This takes place in the same 'verse as myJames Neal: Werewolf Detectiveseries and many of the ficlets tie into that series.





	1. Sabres: Puppy Piles

**Author's Note:**

> By popular demand, I'm crossposting all of the stories in my Tumblr werewolf AU to AO3 for easier searching, bookmarking, and downloading. These stories all take place in the same AU as my _[James Neal: Werewolf Detective](http://archiveofourown.org/series/870399)_ series here on AO3. The stories will be posted in the order that they were written, and in the notes before each one I'll mark when it was posted and include any relevant notes that were in the original posting. Chapter titles will include team names to make it easier to find the stories you're looking for.
> 
> Please note that I rarely have the patience for editing, especially on Tumblr, so there's a strong likelihood that there are more than a few typos floating around in here. I try to correct things when I spot them, but I don't reread my own work often enough to catch everything. Additionally, these fics are all copied directly from Tumblr (I no longer have the original copies of many due to computer issues), so if you see any weird spacing or formatting, that would be why.
> 
> All fics were originally posted [here](https://swedishgoaliemafia.tumblr.com/tagged/It%27s-a-Wolfy-World/chrono), and if you'd like to know more about this AU, all relevant information is [here](https://swedishgoaliemafia.tumblr.com/werewolves), including a list of all wolves in the NHL.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompted: 16 PUPPY PILES PLEASE! Any pair/ group the more the merrier in a pile of snuggles.
> 
> I interpreted that as "angsty Drew Stafford werewolf AU."
> 
> 8/19/14

Things had been…different, since Ryan left. Well, to be fair, things had been different ever since that first spring of change when Jason was traded away, the beginning of the end. (If Drew was honest with himself, nothing had been the same since Danny and Chris left, their alpha and their captain, but he hadn’t been around them long enough to lament it the way some of the older guys used to.)

It was bad enough with their alpha gone (it had already been strange after having him co-alpha with Jason for so long) but Otter leaving in the same trade only exacerbated the situation. Steve wasn’t an alpha; he wasn’t even a wolf, but most wolves were surprised to learn that when they first met him, because he exuded so much of that aggressive confidence and care for his team that alpha wolves were known for. No, Otter was human, but a human who had so thoroughly accepted a place in their pack in such a short amount of time that his departure was a gaping hole of loss right next to their alpha’s.

The team had been struggling to hold itself together ever since, but it was hard when there was nobody to fill the new alpha position. A lot of the guys thought Drew himself should step in, but – he just couldn’t find it in himself to do it. He felt guilty for it, achingly, self-loathingly guilty, because he saw how much it was hurting the rest of the pack to go so long without an alpha, especially the younger guys (and there were  _so many_  younger guys, too). But Ryan hadn’t named anyone as a successor, hadn’t had anyone groomed for the position (so many housekeeping tasks and traditions had fallen by the wayside in those last few years, though nobody could complain when Ryan was singlehandedly holding both the team and the pack together by the end), and nobody had declared themselves alpha after he left.

(Nobody wanted to. It was like if they didn’t find a new alpha, they didn’t have to admit that their old one was gone. Losing Jason had been bad enough, a blow to an already hurting pack and team. Losing Ryan had left them adrift, a group of lost wolves with no leader and no direction on a team in the exact same position, left vulnerable to whatever team or pack that wanted to come in and run roughshod over them in their weakened state. They needed an alpha, or they were going to fall apart completely.)

That was why everybody seemed to be looking to Drew to take over. He had been the closest to Ryan when he left, the longest-tenured member of the team and the only wolf left who could remind the younger ones of a time when they were the strongest pack in all of the league, the best team in the NHL. It seemed natural that he would become the next alpha.

But he didn’t know how. He was a lifelong beta, one thrown into a situation he had never wanted to face. He was used to being a second-in-command, someone who deferred to others. Drew had already taken over much of the team’s leadership responsibilities in the void left by their revolving door of captains; he wasn’t sure he could handle trying to lead a crumbling pack as well.

It didn’t matter if he didn’t take over the position officially, though, at least not to the pack. It didn’t stop them from coming to him for guidance, for comfort, to settle a dispute. With Ryan gone and without Hank’s calm, steady presence (and hadn’t that been a blow in itself, losing the reliable, confident beta a second time), Drew was the most mature wolf on the team and the one that, apparently, projected the most comforting aura, which wasn’t something he was used to. Once upon a time he had been the goofy older brother figure, doing roller-skating workout routines and discussing his love of Festivus. Now they wanted him to be the leader, the alpha, the pseudo-parent to a bunch of cubs who had gone far too long without stability in their lives, and whether or not he was willing to accept that role, he had it anyway, because somehow, through all of Murray’s trades and new signings for veteran, team-focused players, he hadn’t signed a single wolf. Of course he’d gone ahead and drafted one, though, leaving Drew with another wide-eyed rookie he was terrified of screwing up. Drew didn’t think Murray knew about wolves, and the new guys were awesome at dealing with anxious cubs even if they didn’t realize what they were doing, but he still cursed the man for not being able to sign  _one single mature adult_  to help him out.

The Sabres didn’t really  _have_  any mature adult wolves anymore, or even mature adult players who knew about wolves (there had never been many of those to begin with, and Otter had been the last one they’d had seeing as he’d known about wolves since Mike came to live with his parents as a teenager, though qualifying him as mature was sometimes questionable anyway). Right now Drew was the oldest wolf on the team at the ripe old age of barely-twenty-nine, and the next oldest wolves were Mike and Jhonas, clocking in at the positively ancient twenty-six.

Most teams had a relatively small number of wolves anyway, the smallest pack containing just three. That wasn’t a problem for the Sabres; they had wolves in spades.

The only problem was that all but three were under the age of twenty-five, and the majority still qualified for the term “cub.”

Sometimes Drew really wondered if their GMs actually  _did_  know about wolves, because across two general managers, the Sabres had somehow managed to only draft wolves in the first round for three consecutive years.

They’d had five first round draft picks in those three years.

That was a lot of cubs.

With the additions of the guys they’d traded for (Cody) and the older ones they’d drafted (Marcus, Mark and Mysey, the three M’s and the three largest adolescent pains in Drew’s ass), not even including whoever was called up from Rochester at any given times (and Drew wasn’t naming names, but Luke was a cub that required hands-on care and attention at any age) – well, that was a lot of damn wolves to look after, okay? Especially in a situation where leadership hadn’t even been thrust upon him, but more accidentally thrown at him like a hot potato as the last great Buffalo wolf departed from the city, if said hot potato contained a very young pack that at any time consisted of up to thirteen or more wolves with an instable leadership structure and high emotional needs.

What he’s trying to say was that there was a whole lot of wolf-cuddling on that team.

Wolves had a tendency to puppy pile at the drop of a hat, largely because it was a favorite pastime of any pack regardless of their mood.

Happy after a great win? Puppy pile.

Sad after a miserable loss? Puppy pile.

Just bored? Puppy pile.

Miss home or just want a hug? Puppy pile.

Feel like your team and pack are lost with no real sense of direction or leader to turn to and nobody to tell you that you did okay and that you’re a good player and you’re safe and protected and somebody loves you?

Yeah, you definitely need a puppy pile.

Sadly in Drew’s case, the last reason was his team’s most usual reason for piling up. No matter the cause, though, there was a good chance that if the team was together for any extended period of time off the ice, somebody was going to start using somebody else as a pillow, and it was a variable guess if they’d wait until their human teammates weren’t around to do it.

(Those were the joys of having a pack full of cubs, Drew learned. Both utterly shameless and completely ignorant to the fact that they really  _weren’t_  supposed to do wolf-y things in front of non-wolves, especially ones not in-the-know, they would gleefully lie on, growl, sniff or nuzzle each other without a second thought as to who was watching. On the upside, their human teammates had been confused but had embraced the behavior, and were now for the most part willing to sometimes join in the odd public displays of affection. On the downside, everybody in the league, human or wolf, thought they were a bunch of fucking weirdos.)

(Some members of the pack, whose names started with Marc/k, thought that wasn’t such a bad thing because it made them unique and fun.

Some members of the pack were also cubs who weren’t being forced into leadership positions, so they could keep their opinions to themselves.)

They did it enough at home as it was, but if they were on a road trip, there was a good ninety percent chance that he could find at least three of the guys puppy piled together in somebody’s hotel room.

There just happened to be a ninety-nine percent chance that the hotel room in question would be his own, and he still didn’t know how they kept getting cardkeys to get in there unless they found a wolf behind the front desk to make sad puppy eyes at in every single hotel.

On this such night on a road trip to Florida, he unlocked his door for the first time that night to find eight separate heads popping up from the queen-sized bed to stare at him.

He rolled his eyes and closed the door behind him in a huff.

“Hi,” Samson said with a small, shy wave. Drew couldn’t help but smile at him, because he was still young and new enough to try to show Drew some respect and to look for his approval. Mysey, on the other hand, was scrolling through television channels and Marcus was definitely eating something from the mini-fridge that would go on Drew’s bill.

He sighed again and forced a kind nod towards Sam before shucking off his shoes and walking past the bed to get to his bag, reaching out over the pile and running his fingers through Jhonas’s hair as he passed.

“Aren’t you going to keep them in line?” he asked, unzipping his suitcase and digging through it for his toiletries.

“Aren’t you?” Jhony retorted, not even looking up from where he was messing around on his phone, probably something related to his fantasy football team if Drew had to guess. (Drew didn’t quite understand why Jhonas even bothered having a fantasy football team when the majority were current or former Bills players, anyways. Then again, if he could make a fantasy hockey team, it would most likely be made up of current or former pack members so he could live in a fantasy of when he felt safe and loved and – yeah. He couldn’t judge.)

“I’d rather not,” he said loudly, just to hear the chorus of whines rise up from the bed. “You’re a pile of leeches,” he added when Zemgus reached out to bat at his leg like the obnoxious brat he was.

He still made sure to ruffle Sam’s hair as he passed, scratching the base of his neck for just a moment, because he could smell the anxiety and dismay when the pup started to take Drew’s words too close to heart and Drew may have been turning into the grumpy older wolf much to his own dismay, but he wasn’t heartless.

He went to the bathroom and showered quickly, because no matter how much he complained about the pack constantly taking over his room he loved those little shits to pieces and loved spending time together as much as they did. (And he understood why they were so clingy this year, more so than ever before. He felt the same way. And feeling the same way as them was what kept him from trusting himself to be alpha, because what kind of alpha pined for somebody else to guide them? He wasn’t Ryan or Jason, natural leaders from the start who exuded the calm patience a pack needed but had that steel in them that made other packs back off and respect them, and he certainly wasn’t Danny, able to take a bunch of cubs and make them feel like they mattered, to teach them to be great wolves and even better hockey players, to treat them like a second father. God, it had been seven years and Drew still couldn’t face Danny without that quick, razor-sharp stab to his heart every time he saw the man he still desperately viewed as an alpha he wanted to please and only received the blank expression of an opposing player instead. Facing Jason was bad, but Jason had been a friend and a brother before he was an alpha so it wasn’t too awful, and he knew facing Ryan would be living hell because Ryan was  _Ryan_ , but he wasn’t sure anything could ever quite match up to permanently feeling like a rejected pup that wasn’t good enough for Danny Brière anymore-)

He toweled off his hair, wrapped a towel around his waist and went back into the room.

Naturally, someone whistled loudly when they spotted him and if Rasmus didn’t think Drew knew it was him then he had another thing coming. God, he needed to learn to bring his clothes into the bathroom with him, but then again, it didn’t usually occur to him seeing as this was  _his own damn room_.

Apparently both Webby and Enzo had shown up in the time Drew was gone, bringing the grand total on his bed to ten, and he wasn’t quite sure how they managed to all squeeze themselves on there but he knew ten hockey players put them well over the bed’s suggested weight limit, regardless of what some of the guys called Jhonas and Enzo’s “teacup size.”

(Enzo was not, in fact, a werewolf. Actually, Drew was pretty sure that Tyler still didn’t know that real werewolves existed. He was just, it seemed, a very big fan of the cuddle pile, because he had somehow found his way into most every one since he had joined the team, whether or not somebody actually informed him that one was going on.)

He pulled on his sleep clothes quickly, just some basketball shorts and an old t-shirt with the Buffaslug logo, before turning to face the bed with a calculating eye. “Guys, this isn’t going to work.”

The chorus of whines came back with a vengeance.

“I’m serious, you’re going to break the bed – don’t you dare high-five.”

Guiltily, Marcus and Zemgus retracted their hands.

_Children._

(They had no right to make Drew feel this old.)

“This isn’t going to work,” he repeated, watching Enzo crawl overtop of Rasmus, squirm around Webby and somehow end up mostly on top of Cody with his legs partially on top of Mysey.

“I’m saving space,” he told Drew helpfully as he nestled in against Cody’s chest, like removing the surface area of the smallest guy out of ten people really helped.

Cody, at least, looked thrilled.

“Uh,” Sam began slowly, his eyes darting around from where he was pinned, Jhonas’s arm around his shoulders, Mark’s over his waist and Zemgus sprawled over his legs. “I could leave, if that would help.”

There was a collective rolling of eyes. Leave it to the one cub everybody knew Drew would never throw out to be the one polite enough to offer to leave.

Drew decided to step in before he set off Mark and Cody’s good-boy complexes and made them feel guilty too.

“No, kid, you’re fine,” he sighed, running a hand through his hair again like he was Marcus giving an interview. “We’ll find a way, I guess.”

He felt like that was too much of his life anymore, just struggling to find a way to do things that were basically impossible to begin with and having questionable results for all of his effort. He was holding together a team with a higher turnover rate than a McDonald’s, he had one of the most ridiculously large packs in the NHL containing  _the_  highest number of cubs in a single pack and he somehow had to take care of all of them when they were left feeling abandoned and alone and he didn’t know how to  _fix_  that, not when inside he still felt like a pup abandoned by his own alpha, not when he was a freak who still hadn’t gotten over that when Danny had left  _seven years ago_ -

And sometimes, Drew had to find a way to fit eleven full-grown people on a bed normally intended for two.

Luckily for him, he had some experience.

With another loud sigh, just to show the brats how much he went through for them, Drew stepped carefully onto the end of the bed, one foot between Rasmus’s head and Mike’s torso (Mike gave his calf a friendly pat, because even Drew’s “mature adult” wolves were brats too) before depositing the other one somewhere around Mark’s feet and Zemgus’s face, and he didn’t regret that in the least. The bed wobbled dangerously as he unsettled the weight, looking for a good place to flop down, when Sam squirmed over to lie partially on top of Mark, making room between himself and Jhonas.

(No matter if they were on a bed, a couch or the floor, Jhony always got to be in the middle and he always got his own pillow. It was a goalie thing.)

Drew smirked, unsurprised that he would be the only one willing to move over, and carefully inserted himself into the small amount of open space, completely unsurprised when almost immediately everybody else crowded in around him, Jhonas pressing up under his left arm, Webby moving so he was now cuddling Drew’s calves, and Rasmus resting his head against Drew’s hip. He listened as the rest of the pack shifted around too, Enzo making himself more comfortable across Mysey and Cody, Marcus wrapping himself around Mark and Zemgus so he wouldn’t fall off the bed again (Drew was sure it would happen within the next four hours, but that’s what Marcus got for always laying on the outside).

Then he held out his right arm for Sam, trying not to smile too much when the youngest cub’s eyes lit up in genuine delighted surprise, like he honestly thought Drew wasn’t going to let him close. It only took him a second to situate himself under Drew’s arm, head on his chest and a big grin on his face.

So, maybe Drew doted on the cubs a little bit too much. Hey, he had a lot of cubs and given what they’d been through the last few years, they needed a lot of doting.

And maybe, sometimes, he didn’t want them to one day years from now face him across the ice and feel like crying every single time.

And maybe, sometimes, they just needed a good cuddle. Drew wasn’t their alpha, and he wasn’t their captain, but cuddling?

That, at least, he could do.


	2. Sabres: Rasmus POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> borninthecold prompted: "#this prompt was really just an excuse for me to write an AU I've been imagining up for months#and I would totally write more of this at the drop of a hat" *drops a hat* oops! I guess while I'm down here with this hat I dropped totally by accident, you could write me something from the POV of one of the new pups on coming into the team and on totally-not-their-alpha!Drew...
> 
> 8/20/14

Rasmus didn’t know Jason Pominville. He came in after the trade, the first of many times the Sabres would lose their captain, and after all of the trades and deals that slowly began dismantling his team one by one before he had even joined it. So no, he didn’t know Jason Pominville, but Rasmus was there for the wreckage the trade left in its wake, and he was there to see the team complete its crash and burn to the bottom of the league.

He wasn’t there to say goodbye to the team’s captain and alpha, but he was there to lose the team’s next two captains and the remaining alpha, and none of that even took a year to happen.

He was there to see what came next.

Nobody ever prepared you for losing an alpha. Rasmus had never lost one before – his uncle was their family’s alpha, and he was lucky that his family was all relatively young and in good health. He’d never had to worry about losing his alpha, especially considering that he was lucky enough to play in the Liiga team right in his hometown, meaning there was no need for him to find a new alpha when he began playing professionally. When the full moon came around, he was usually able to continue running with his pack, or if they were on the road, swing a night with some of the guys on the team in a local park with the knowledge that he had a pack to go home to.

Moving to America was a whole different experience. When he first visited Buffalo after the draft, there was still an alpha to meet him, Ryan, and it was a strange experience for Rasmus to submit to somebody other than his uncle, even though he knew he would have to do it if he was going to play in Buffalo or an hour away in Rochester. But it was even stranger that while Ryan was right there, strong and kind and definitely an alpha, everyone was lamenting the trade of Jason Pominville like it had just happened yesterday, like losing a co-alpha when most everyone only had one anyway was some sort of travesty.

The weirdest part was that they acted like he’d  _died._

He didn’t know how you dealt with losing an alpha, but he couldn’t fathom the way they talked about him, barely talking about him at all, actually, except in the way that they would fall-short mid-sentence if they got close to mentioning him, or would suddenly look miserable or near-tears but would refuse to say why, even though everybody knew the reason anyway. Jason Pominville’s name was both a forbidden phrase and the topic most regularly on the Buffalo pack’s minds, and Rasmus had no idea how to deal with that other than by not dealing with it in the same way that the pack did. He didn’t ask questions about Jason, or about why they behaved as if he’d been murdered and hadn’t just been traded to another team, and nobody volunteered any information.

Over the course of that first summer and the ensuing training camp, the wound that was Jason Pominville’s loss continued wearing on the team like an untended sore, but nobody seemed inclined to do anything about it (Rasmus suspected they didn’t know  _what_  to do about it) so he didn’t question the process. Instead, he stuck with the other youngest members of the pack, the “cubs” as everyone called them, and that was a name he thought he’d outgrown since officially becoming an adult, but apparently he was wrong.

It was strange just to have new packmates for the first time in his life. The other guys were nice, though, and for the most part in the same boat as he was. Nikita was drafted with him and knew just as few people as Rasmus did, though he had the positive of already being good friends with Grigorenko, who Rasmus met for the first time at training camp. The Russians stuck to each other (and to the Russian goaltender at prospects camp) like glue, but were more than willing to include Rasmus when it came to pack things, which was nice seeing as Mikhail – Misha, as Nikita insisted Rasmus call him – was the only one of them with any real experience on the team. Zemgus Girgensons, the Latvian who had been drafted with Misha, had spent the last season in Rochester and had little hands-on experience with the pack at large. It was Misha (who kept trying to push “Grigo” as his real nickname, despite Nikita brushing him off loudly) who finally gave them some information about the pack, on a quiet afternoon during training camp, shortly before a “pack bonding session” was due to occur at Ryan’s house.

He told them with somewhat halting English (something that they all suffered from in varying degrees except for, apparently, Zemgus) about how Jason and Ryan had run the pack like brothers for years. When Rasmus asked how that was possible for two alphas not to get on each other’s nerves, he’d shrugged easily and said, “Is like brothers,” and that was the only explanation Rasmus ever received. Later, through context clues he would determine that it had been an equal partnership, both of them feeling too inexperienced to handle the pack on their own when Brière left but finding it a workable situation to run it together. And then, after they’d gotten older, it was just easier to stay in that same comfortable situation when it became clear that neither one of them was bothered sharing the alpha position.

Things were only so different, Grigo explained to him now, because Jason was gone. The majority of the pack had never been around before Jason and Ryan became co-alphas, and weren’t used to only having one. To compound the problem, Ryan had never led the pack on his own before and had to quickly adjust to having total responsibility. Everything was in a state of upheaval.

“But why do they…” Rasmus trailed off, struggling to find the right words in any language to describe his thoughts. “It is like he  _died_.”

Misha shrugged, not at all surprised. “He is gone and not alpha anymore, and with a new team. When we see him again, he looks like alpha, we love him like alpha, but he is not.” He grimaced and added carefully, “It  _is_  like he died.”

And maybe it didn’t fully make sense to Rasmus at the time, but he would eventually learn exactly what Grigo had meant.

At the time, he made his way with the other three to Ryan’s house and tried not to be too wide-eyed and uncomfortable around his new alpha. Luckily for him, Ryan was at least better at hiding his feelings about losing Jason than the other guys, and was very focused on making the newer pack members, mainly himself and Nikita, feel welcome. And it did feel strange, having another alpha’s hand rubbing over the back of his neck, rolling around in a puppy pile that smelled like a different pack ( _his_  pack, now), but it inexplicably felt comfortable at the same time. It felt safe, and that was how Rasmus found himself falling asleep with his head against Ryan’s shoulder, his legs buried under Cody Hodgson and his chest pinned under the arm of Marcus Foligno, somehow feeling safe and cared for even when surrounded by people who still at times felt like strangers.

He grew into the pack as time progressed, finding his place as one of the loveable brats as Otter had named the group of first rounders, and wasn’t that strange, a human joining right into pack business like he belonged. Or at least, he thought it was strange, until the first full moon he spent in Buffalo, when he watched Otter tackle Webby’s wolf form like they were littermates (given the way Mike responded, growling and tugging at Otter’s shirt while his tail thumped happily, added to the way they behaved when they were human, Rasmus figured that he wasn’t too far off the mark), but it made him glad when Steve was named a co-captain; he liked having someone in both places of leadership that he knew he could fully trust.

(He also learned to get used to humans intermingling with the pack because if he thought Otter knowing about wolves due to being Mike’s best friend for so long was strange, Tyler Ennis not knowing about werewolves but walking into cuddle piles like he had a standing invitation was even stranger, though its strangeness was in competition with how fervently excited Cody always was to see him. He’d have started to think that Cody invited Tyler himself if he didn’t always look so delightedly surprised every time.)

Part of belonging to the group of new cubs was that they were treated like exactly that, the young ones to be handled with care who everyone else stubbornly tried to keep their sorrows from, like they couldn’t smell that Mysey had probably been awake crying most of the night, or they couldn’t tell that Drew was always turning to look for someone and then had to watch as the sick reminder of Jason’s absence washed over him again. Rasmus knew he’d entered into a broken team that was doing its best to hide their pain from him. He didn’t know  _why_  it was so broken, what was leading full grown men to tears, to have to curl up together on road trips not just because they wanted to but because they felt like they had to so they could get through another night.

He didn’t understand until he sat in the press box the night the Wild visited, scratched for the seventh loss in as many games since the season had started, the worst start in franchise history, and watched his pack stare down their former alpha, their former captain, like he was tearing their hearts out. They showed their emotions to different degrees when Rasmus visited them in the dressing room between periods, but he saw Jhonas tug Mark aside to a secluded room to pull his head down to his shoulder and let him cry, and he saw how Drew stared at everything vacantly, like he’d already checked out so he didn’t have to think about how he was facing off against Jason on the other side of the ice. He saw Mike punch a wall and how Otter pulled him away, started hissing things into his ear. He saw Marcus and Mysey slump against each other, looking defeated before the third period even began. He saw how Ryan gritted his teeth, sitting on the bench tonight so he had a perfect view of how badly it was hurting his pack to see their alpha  _not_ be their alpha anymore.

It was the only time any one of them ever said something to him about it. He’d been patting everyone on the back before they went out for the third period and Marcus’s face looked  _wrecked_  already, so he’d slung an arm around his shoulders and murmured a quiet, “Sorry.”

Marcus had tried to give him a wobbly smile, but it came out as a bitten lip like he was trying to keep from crying. “It feels like he doesn’t love us anymore,” he said hoarsely, shrugging like there was nothing anyone could do to fix that and heading back out onto the ice.

They went into the period with a 2-1 deficit and they didn’t score to even it out, handing the Wild their win with not a growl, but a whimper. Jason Pominville had the game-winning goal. He smiled when he was named first star of the night. He went back to his dressing room, the visitor’s room, to celebrate with his new team. His new pack.

The Sabres pack went to Ryan’s house, where they silently stripped out of their game-day suits into various states of undress, boxers and t-shirts appearing the norm, and quietly curled up together, not mentioning when they heard somebody sniffle or saw someone wipe their eyes. Their pack was hurting just as badly as their team, and things were only getting worse.

Thomas was traded two weeks later, and now the Sabres had one captain to go with their one alpha. Now the team could ache the way the pack did.

(It was another thing nobody would ever talk about, but one night when the guys were getting drunk after another typical loss, Mysey had shrugged with a pinched look on his face and said to Rasmus, “He didn’t want to be here. I don’t think anybody wants to be here. Nobody wants us; why would they?” Rasmus knew they were talking about more than one person, but remained silent.)

Matt Moulson wasn’t a wolf, but he was a blessing to the team, a goal-scorer like Van had been but one with a bit of a chip on his shoulder, something to prove to his old team for trading him and a refreshing openness to giving Buffalo his diehard loyalty. A lot of people, Rasmus was learning, treated coming to Buffalo like a death knell. It was nice to have a guy so willing to say, “Screw it, this is my life now,” and treat the team like they’d been his all along. At least he wasn’t sulking.

(The pack was doing enough of that for him.)

Rasmus kept moving between the Sabres and the Americans, and every time he returned to the NHL he could tell that nothing had improved for the status of the pack. (He could tell nothing had improved for the team just by watching their games.) Ryan was trying to hide it but he was obviously being stretched too thin, trying to attend to a large pack that was still hurting while trying to keep afloat a team that was crumbling around him while everyone, pack and otherwise, looked to him to tell them what to do.

He didn’t have the answers. Nobody did. And that was why Rasmus kept his helpless feelings to himself and did his best not to be a bother when the homesickness got to be so much he couldn’t sleep at night, and he played the best hockey he could. In November, Nikita was sent down to London for the rest of the season. In December, he, along with Misha and Rasmus, went to World Juniors, and for a little while Rasmus got to play with his countrymen, with his family coming to visit in the stands, and he got to win gold (got the  _game-winning overtime goal_ ) for his country, was named an All-Star defenseman with Nikita and the best defenseman in the entire tournament, and he forgot what it felt like to try to become part of a pack, to learn to  _love_  a pack that was hurt and lost and falling apart in front of his eyes.

He went back to Rochester shortly after the tournament ended, and guiltily he decided that maybe it would be nice, to curl up with Luke and sometimes Mark in Rochester, away from the turmoil and the loss in Buffalo, where he could pretend that his new pack, his new  _franchise_  wasn’t constantly mired in pain.

The Olympic Games were a bright spot for everyone, watching four of their own go off to compete in Sochi, watching two of those four medal.

And then the Olympics ended and the Buffalo Sabres fell apart.

Ryan and Steve were traded on a Friday; Brayden, McCormick and Matt left at the trade deadline. Jaroslav Halak, a wolf who was openly disdainful of the team and the pack even before he arrived in Buffalo, came and left in that time.

Pat LaFontaine resigned from his new position in the franchise the day after Ryan’s trade. Now the whole city of Buffalo [was hurting](http://38.media.tumblr.com/24185df9d160c4c1b3470a2dbc0ae1fc/tumblr_n1xwvaIlfw1qfkx9zo1_400.jpg).

Everything tentative and safe that Rasmus had found in Buffalo died.

Now he understood why everybody acted like Jason was dead. It didn’t hurt as much as remembering you’d been abandoned.

It made sense to him now, why everyone had felt that way when Jason left. Even if he was leaving against his own will, he was  _leaving_ , and he was going to be happy somewhere else, and have a pack somewhere else, and he was going to  _love_  them and everyone he left behind would just be memories, people he used to know, people he used to play with. People he used to love. He knew it hurt Ryan to leave (he’d watched Ryan and Steve’s [goodbye press conference](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fvideo.sabres.nhl.com%2Fvideocenter%2Fconsole%3Fid%3D563950%26catid%3D1103&t=NzY1ZTg5MzRlOGZhNzI5NmI5MWE3NzQyYzI1YjY0MzUyYmUwNDA5ZSxLc2ZDS1BobA%3D%3D&b=t%3A9H_yMHZoXSJOQHEK1KjFQw&p=https%3A%2F%2Fswedishgoaliemafia.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F95252479379%2Fthis-prompt-was-really-just-an-excuse-for-me-to&m=1) after miserably losing his own game that night 6-2 in Chicago, curled up in a bed with Luke and Mark and Freddy Roy, a wolf who was signed to the Amerks but not the Sabres, clutching a pillow and trying not to cry as they watched a video of their  _alpha_  crying, of their alpha  _leaving them_ ) but that didn’t change that he  _was_  leaving, and with that came the knowledge that one day when he thought of his pack he would think of somebody else, of a different pack ( _a better pack_ ) and maybe he would even be their alpha one day too, and he would see that pack across the ice, that pack in blue and gold called the Sabres, and maybe he would feel a twinge of remembrance, of when they were his and he was theirs, and then he would forget about them, because that time was gone and they didn’t matter to him anymore, not when he had a new pack to care about, and they would be left there, watching him and praying for just one scrap of acknowledgement that he loved them too, once, that they still mattered to him at all.

But if they pretended that Ryan was dead, then at least he couldn’t replace them. And then the pain would be a little less until they played against him and the whole wound was ripped wide open again.

When Rasmus was reassigned to Buffalo, the first thing he noticed was how obvious the power vacuum was, both for the vacant captaincy and the alpha position. And he saw the pressure on Drew to fill in for both.

It made sense. He’d been on the team the longest, excluding Henrik and his three-year sabbatical in New Jersey. He’d had the A before too, but not since this season had begun. He’d been a beta to both Jason and Ryan. He was now the second-oldest wolf on the team, after Henrik. He seemed the natural fit for alpha and someone who should be seriously considered for the captaincy.

He began unofficially leading the team with a steely determination, he and Enzo working to turn around their games and begin putting up points, like they had silently decided that they  _needed_  to do something to save the team, now, before things could somehow get inconceivably worse. Drew got out of his slump and any articles written about the team talked about how he had really taken over as a new leader.

But he’d been scarred by the events of the season. The gapingly empty alpha role was weighing on all of the pack, but Drew more than anyone else. He could take over leadership roles in the team if he had to – he’d been an alternate before and could do it again, a natural beta through and through – but the pack was another thing. As Ryan’s beta it would usually be fitting for him to take over as alpha too, but – Rasmus had seen the [video of his interview](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fvideo.sabres.nhl.com%2Fvideocenter%2Fconsole%3Fid%3D564241%26catid%3D1103&t=OTE0MDE4MWU0YTlkMTI1MWJhYmQyZmU3MGEzN2MxOTYxNDc5NmUyMSxLc2ZDS1BobA%3D%3D&b=t%3A9H_yMHZoXSJOQHEK1KjFQw&p=https%3A%2F%2Fswedishgoaliemafia.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F95252479379%2Fthis-prompt-was-really-just-an-excuse-for-me-to&m=1) the night Ryan had left. He’d seen how Drew tried to laugh about it, for the sake of the fans that were already hurting enough, but it didn’t hide his own pain. And then Rasmus had received a single, uncharacteristically well-written and chilling text from Zemgus:  _“However bad you think it is, it’s worse.”_

He sent no context with the message, but Rasmus instantly knew what he meant: Drew wasn’t any better off than the rest of them. Maybe he was even worse. But while everyone else could cry and turn to each other for comfort, he had to pretend that his heart wasn’t broken, for their sake, because everyone was expecting it of him and relying on him, and the only person he had to lean on was Hank, who was currently playing out the final year of his contract and was doing his best to help Drew keep the pack afloat as it was.

(Rasmus knew Drew probably didn’t realize it, but they recognized how much it was hurting him to try to care for the rest of the pack.  _They_  were hurting him. It felt like the worst kind of betrayal.

He got better at keeping his emotions to himself. He’d only been here a year. He didn’t want to be a burden.)

Rasmus kept moving between Buffalo and Rochester, but he got to stick around in Buffalo for April, when everything went to shit in a way they had never thought possible. First Michal was injured in practice, leading Nathan Lieuwen to be called up to replace him. He then got his NHL debut mid-game against the Habs, where he at least didn’t let in any more goals in a 2-0 loss after Jamie tripped Brendan Gallagher into Jhonas, sending him out of the game with an injury. Matt Hackett was called up from Rochester to replace him, and Connor Knapp along with Nikita and Grigo’s friend Andrey Makarov was pulled from the minors to fill in the empty goalie slots on the Amerks.

Then things got even  _more_  perverse, with Lieu getting injured, meaning Knapper was called up from Rochester and the Amerks were left to scramble for a goalie. And then the ridiculousness reached its pinnacle when, in the penultimate game of the season, Hackett was injured too and Makki went from being an ECHL goalie to an NHL goalie in one season. (Rochester was left to pull a goalie out of its ass, and Rasmus was kind of glad he wasn’t there to see the management staff have a coronary. Instead he got to watch the farce that was the end of the Buffalo Sabres’s season and decide if it was a comedy or a tragedy. He decided a comic tragedy was fitting.)

During all of this was a road trip visit to St. Louis. Ryan was the backup that night, to make things easier on him given how close it was to the trade. It was a blessing for everyone involved; just seeing him there on the bench was distracting enough, seeing him and wondering if he was mentally cursing or cheering for them when they did well. They lost the game 2-1, their only goal belonging to Cody on the power play, assisted by Tyler and Ville.

He and Steve met up with the guys after the game, along with Jordan Leopold and Derek Roy, both of whom were former Sabres from before Rasmus’s time (Leopold had been traded around the same time as Pominville, but Roy had left the Sabres for Dallas in exchange for Otter, and now here they were, on the same team nowhere near Buffalo).

The entire thing felt awkward to Rasmus. Maybe it was feeling like he was visiting his alpha, or maybe it was the way that Ryan still obviously viewed himself as their alpha and was trying to suppress it; that was probably for their sake, to keep from making things worse when they had to leave again, but it just felt like rejection and they all felt it keenly.

Roy made things worse. He was a wolf and made no effort to hide it, smiling sharply at people as they passed and hanging off of Ryan in a very clear “he’s mine and not yours” move. Most of the human Sabres didn’t care (Enzo had just rolled his eyes and snorted, “Roysy,” in a semi-fond tone) but the wolves could recognize it for what it was. Admittedly, most of them didn’t know Roy that well, if at all. He treated the older pack members differently, at least, touching them with that same familiarity that a pack member would, and okay, maybe that was something some people never lost, that feeling of familiarity with their old packs. Maybe it was different for alphas, who had to avoid encroaching on a new alpha’s territory or making things worse for their old pack by confusing them or leaving them again.

Rasmus didn’t think he could ever stop looking at an old pack as his pack. Maybe it was because his old pack was literally his family, but he saw them as his pack while simultaneously feeling completely loyal to the Sabres’s pack. So maybe he couldn’t blame Roy.

No, he decided, when Roy leveled a sharp, shit-eating grin towards Rasmus and Zemgus as he ruffled Ryan’s hair, he could definitely blame Roy.

“Roysy’s a dick sometimes,” Mike said matter-of-factly in one of the rare moments he wasn’t glued to Otter, even though he’d been on the receiving end of Roy’s head-patting and nuzzling just like the others. “He’s always been the territorial type. He’s a great packmate, but a total jackass to other wolves.”

“It shows,” Zemgus grumbled, glaring at his Coke. (The restaurant was pretty fanatical about carding. Roy had chosen it.)

Rasmus didn’t spend any personal time with Ryan that night, except for a hug when the team left where he tried his hardest not to cling when Ryan quickly kissed the top of his hair and whispered, “Be good.” He went back to the hotel and cried, but it was okay, because he by far wasn’t alone.

That was one of the first nights that the pack started gathering in Drew’s room.

The rest of the season was one stupidly ridiculous game after another until the season did, at least, actually end in a bang. It was Fan Appreciation Night and they were playing the Islanders, and it was the kind of hockey game fans loved to see, the Sabres taking the lead, getting scored on to tie things up and then taking the lead again, trading goals to keep things close and exciting. The game was just  _fun_ , more fun than Rasmus had had playing hockey in a while. Jamie had an [amazing highlight-reel end-to-end goal](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fvideo.sabres.nhl.com%2Fvideocenter%2Fconsole%3Fid%3D2013021225-76-h&t=ZTI0YjE0NWNmNGIzMjZhNTY4MTAzYzEzZDU2NzgwYzgxMjExNzBhMyxLc2ZDS1BobA%3D%3D&b=t%3A9H_yMHZoXSJOQHEK1KjFQw&p=https%3A%2F%2Fswedishgoaliemafia.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F95252479379%2Fthis-prompt-was-really-just-an-excuse-for-me-to&m=1) that even gave Connor an assist in his very first NHL start, and Rasmus himself got an assist on Torrey’s goal.

Ultimately they lost the game in a shootout, Ville getting the [last shot in the shootout](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fvideo.sabres.nhl.com%2Fvideocenter%2Fconsole%3Fid%3D2013021225-649-h&t=MjIxODczYjRmZWZkNjM1YjcwOTkzOWYwNzFlZjAyODc3MzBjZTY1MSxLc2ZDS1BobA%3D%3D&b=t%3A9H_yMHZoXSJOQHEK1KjFQw&p=https%3A%2F%2Fswedishgoaliemafia.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F95252479379%2Fthis-prompt-was-really-just-an-excuse-for-me-to&m=1) for posterity’s sake, as if he could somehow match his lone goal of the season, a shootout goal that didn’t count for points. As if making that goal could somehow save him from being bought out in a few months. But the truly heartening thing was the crowd, how they cheered ridiculously (uncharacteristically) for Ville like his goal could somehow win them the Stanley Cup. They were laughing at the team while laughing with them, maybe, but they had [gone crazy for his last shootout goal](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fvideo.nhl.com%2Fvideocenter%2Fembed%3Fplaylist%3D2013021129-812-h%26site%3Dsabres&t=MDk1MmNkMmQ5OWFlNGEzMmQ4MjYwYzQ5ZTY2MDZiODEyZDRmNmY2YSxLc2ZDS1BobA%3D%3D&b=t%3A9H_yMHZoXSJOQHEK1KjFQw&p=https%3A%2F%2Fswedishgoaliemafia.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F95252479379%2Fthis-prompt-was-really-just-an-excuse-for-me-to&m=1) and it was Fan Appreciation Night and even though he missed, even with a loss, they made the fans happy.

Going back to Turku for the summer felt…odd. They had one last pack session before everybody dispersed for the summer and after Rochester was out of the playoffs, everybody meeting up for the full moon and trying to end things on a positive note. Like all of their interactions this year it was bittersweet and tinged with loss, especially for those who couldn’t stop noticing who was missing in comparison to the get-togethers of previous years. Rasmus still enjoyed himself, everybody meeting up in Delaware Park as a special treat and just running and running and  _running_  and then flopping down in a giant pile next to a pond, panting on each other and licking each other’s faces. Luke was there, and Misha and Nikita too and even Freddy was invited, even though he wasn’t a full member of their pack and was more allied with a local Rochester pack for the season (his father being his actual full-time alpha). It was just so  _nice,_  to have that time together to be in their wolf skins and run and wrestle and cuddle and play and not have to think about how the world was still shit and their team was shit and their  _pack_  was feeling like shit, too.

But it really was different, going home and going back to his family, to his old pack. It wasn’t that he felt like he didn’t belong, but rather, for the first time, he realized how it truly felt to be an accepted part of two packs at once. He still submitted to his uncle as his alpha, gratefully considering he was the only alpha Rasmus had right now, but part of him missed his pack in Buffalo too, missed Mike’s smirky-older-brother-with-good-advice routine and Jhonas hogging the middle of the bed despite being the smallest guy in the pack, missed how Marcus chronically fell off of the bed no matter what he did and how Luke was even clumsier as a wolf than he was as a person, tripping over puppy-large feet that put Rasmus’s to shame. He missed how Nikita and Misha snuggled up like actual littermates, how Cody acted like he was so much more mature than the rest of them and then joined right into their antics in the next move. He missed how Drew would look at them and roll his eyes like he wasn’t fond of them, like he didn’t give into them so easily because he loved them, and how Henrik could make you want to be better just to impress him, just to make him smile and tell you he was proud even though you knew he already was all along. Hell, he even missed Enzo climbing over top of him in their puppy piles, and Enzo wasn’t even an actual member of the pack.

He’d never experienced anything like that before, missing other people even when he was snuggled with his family. He’d missed his family, of course, and Turku in general, because they were his family and he’d never lived away from home before. But he’d never thought about missing them in a pack sense, at least not after the first few months in America.

Now, phones and the internet were his lifeline to remind himself that there was a pack in Buffalo for him to come back to, even if it was currently spread across the world.

Everybody was talking about change coming in Buffalo. With HarborCenter getting closer to completion, both USA Hockey and the NHL were more willing to throw the city a bone, to let them hold international competitions and even the combine so they could put Buffalo back on the map, not as the industrial center that Rasmus knew it used to be, but as a hockey capital. God knew it could use the tourism.

But what Buffalo also did was win the second pick in the draft lottery, and with that pick they chose Samson Reinhart, the son of a former NHL player who was all-smiles in his interviews, who was all-too-excited to greet his fellow Sabres draftees the next day, to tour the city when the draft ended.

Samson Reinhart was a werewolf.

 _“Another cub!”_  Nikita texted him, along with a bunch of eyeless smiley faces. At least he was excited, and there was no reason not to be, really, to have a larger pack, to have another cub to hang out with (read: to wrestle with and lay on top of).

But then, the pack wasn’t in the best position in the first place, already overrun with too many young wolves and not enough leadership, playing on a team that was in the exact same position. It wasn’t, perhaps, the best situation for a young wolf to walk into.

(Rasmus knew from experience.)

Rasmus met him soon enough, once development camp rolled around. He’d technically finished his rookie season after playing an even split of 34 games in both Buffalo and Rochester, but Zemgus and Grigo were also in attendance after technically finishing their rookie seasons too, and if Mark was there, well out of his rookie year, then none of them were going to look weird in comparison.

Combined, there were five of them that were already members of the Buffalo pack there to meet Reinhart (not including the smattering of wolves invited to development camp who were still prospects that they weren’t very familiar with). And Reinhart was somehow exactly the smiley, slightly dorky kid the interviews made him out to be.

He even actually requested that they all call him Samson.

Yeah.  No.

(It was the first time Rasmus had ever heard someone’s teasing hockey nickname actually be a regular variant of their own name.)

He was a good cuddler too, Rasmus discovered the first time they got him in a puppy pile. A little too worried about not offending them by taking up their personal space, maybe, but they’d train that out of him soon enough. (There were too many wolves in their pack to worry about personal space; usually they were most worried about how many of them they could jam into one confined space.)

When development camp ended, Rasmus was sure they’d be seeing more of the kid over the next year, especially seeing as Buffalo had signed him to a contract already. They’d have to keep him on the Sabres just to avoid wasting his contract years with him in the WHL. Depending on who you asked, he was going to be on the Sabres as part of a development year or because he was going to be their Nathan MacKinnon and miraculously take them to the playoffs.

(Rasmus chose not to think about these outcomes too much, because he knew which one he wanted and which one was more logical.)

Murray also got busy with signings that summer, finding a slew of veteran players to bring to the team to get them in order and, he knew, to help train up young guys like himself. Matt and McCormick were back, which was actually kind of amazing in its own right, and Gionta and Gorges were raring to go. The most surprising supporter of the team in Rasmus’s opinion was Chris Stewart, who’d come to them in exchange for Ryan and who they’d been maybe a little too quick to lump with Halak. He’d been injured too quickly for them to get a good read on him, but whether he’d always been on their side all along or he’d just taken a longer time to come to Matt’s conclusion of “this is my team now and I’m giving them my all no matter what” (and apparently Matt’s had worked out so well for him that he was ready to come back to Buffalo at the earliest opportunity), he’d become their staunchest, most hopeful supporter when it came to interviews, saying they were a shoe-in for the playoffs.

(Rasmus wasn’t so sure, but he liked to read Chris’s interviews anyway. They made him feel like it was okay to hope.)

But in all of those trades and signings, all of those interviews and articles about what a bright future was in store for Buffalo, two things remained true: there had been no new wolves signed aside from Sam, and Hank had not been signed to a new contract.

They were losing one of the pack’s most reliable members and an integral part of their barely-existent leadership structure and were adding a cub.

Oh, but Buffalo GMs always did know how to help out their team.

So when the time for training camp came around, things had shifted for the Sabres again, and not for the better. They had no captain as the season began, and they had no alpha. They had a new draft pick, a somewhat new (but old, depending on how you looked at it) coach who believed in them, and a lot of new hope.

If they could get their power structure in line, they could be the next Avalanche.

If they couldn’t, they would be the next Oilers.

The pack knew that some of the team cohesion came down to them getting their attitudes in order and looking to the future with a smile. They knew they had to put their full focus and energy into their team and their game and couldn’t be distracted pining for old packmates who probably weren’t thinking half as much about them.

That didn’t make it any easier to do, and they found themselves leaning on each other for support now more than ever.

Nobody said it out loud, but they were doing their best to distribute that weight evenly instead of all upon Drew, who with Hank and Christian’s departures had become the unofficial captain as well as the unofficial alpha. Matt and Gio and Gorgie, at least, could help lead the team, but the pack? He was left with Webby and Jhony, two wolves who did their best to help him but were by no means ready to be alphas themselves, and Cody, who always came off as mature beyond his years but was still a bit of a cub himself, and Zemgus, who was in Cody’s position but multiplied by about ten, with the added bonus that nobody would take him seriously as an alpha right now (Rasmus knew he wouldn’t). That largely meant that Drew was shouldering the majority of the work to keep the team together and they all knew it. For that reason, they did their best to go to each other first with all of their problems, to let Drew have his privacy and rest.

That didn’t change that when they wanted to have a pile, which was nearly every night, they always ended up finding a way into Drew’s room to do it. They didn’t want to be a burden, but they wanted him to feel involved, too. The piles were for him as much as they were for the rest of the pack. They could make anyone feel better after a bad day.

(And, nobody wanted to admit it, but as the equivalent of an acting-alpha, everybody wanted to be closer to Drew, to the stability he gave off even without fully recognizing it, the way being closer to him automatically made it feel like everything was okay. He didn’t have to officially become their alpha to still feel like he was their alpha, and they knew he didn’t like that, and that just made it feel even worse.)

Their pack was still struggling along with their team, struggling to define what they wanted their direction to be, how they wanted to run things. Cuddling didn’t fix everything, and neither would hefting all of their problems on Drew. But right now, it was the only thing they knew for sure they were good at.

Sometimes Rasmus looked at other teams, at their packs and their cubs, and he wondered what it would be like, to be one of the Blackhawks’ or the Bruins’ or the Penguins’ or the Sharks’ cubs, who were allowed to be actual cubs and roll around on their teammates and their packmates and cuddle up to their alphas because their teams and packs had everything together. He wondered what it would be like, to not worry about being a burden, to not be in his second year and already have a hole in his heart where an alpha should be, to not already feel like an abandoned pup and to not know what it was like to cry himself to sleep against the shoulder of a packmate who was doing the same thing.

He wondered what it would be like to have it easy.

But his life wasn’t easy, and the NHL wasn’t easy and neither was their pack. Knowing he was part of a very young, very large pack meant having to understand how to take responsibility for helping the pack however he could. It meant he couldn’t be as selfish and carefree as most cubs his age in the NHL were allowed. But it meant he was able to prove himself as a strong wolf, as a worthy pack member. It meant he got to feel that rush of pride when he was able to solve a problem without looking to someone else to arbitrate. It meant he was able to be a part of fixing his pack, his team, and putting both back on the map.

It meant when future Sabres and future wolves looked back on this time, this team and this pack, he would be part of the group that saved them. They would work their way up from the literal bottom and one day, he knew, they would finally win.

So things didn’t come easily to them, but since when had Buffalo ever taken the easy way to anything? So what if he didn’t get to have a picture perfect rookie experience? So what if he knew how to be a considerate pack member at a young age?

So what if maybe all they could do correctly right now was puppy pile?

Puppy piles were fucking awesome anyway.


	3. Sabres: Cody/Enzo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> icehot13 prompted: i suuuuuper want the cody/enzo part of the werewolves verse! please please! tyler feeling entitled to puppy piles! cody being thrilled! PLEAAAASEEEEEEEEE
> 
> 8/24/14

Tyler’s team was a little weird. But that wasn’t their fault; they couldn’t help it if they were a little strange. He loved them anyway.

It seemed that a good chunk of the Buffalo Sabres really enjoyed snuggling.

Well, that was cool, because Tyler liked snuggling too.

He discovered it on one of his first road trips with the team when he accidentally left his keycard in the hotel room he was sharing with the other Tyler. When Mysey didn’t answer the door, Tyler shrugged and went next door to the room he knew Pommer was sharing with Goose, figuring one of them would either know where the other Tyler had gone or would know what he should do.

When Jason answered the door, he was making a point of standing in the doorway so he filled it, which was… _weird_ , because most people didn’t answer a door with both hands on the doorframe and arms spread out, but who was Tyler to judge.

“Hey, is Mysey here? He didn’t answer the door and I left my key inside.”

Jason made a bit of a face, and that was kind of strange too, but maybe yes or no questions were hard for him. “Uh…” He trailed off and then glanced over his shoulder, which, he would know if Mysey was in his room or not, so if he was looking that meant he probably was.

“Oh, cool, he’s here.” Tyler ducked under Jason’s arm and shuffled past him into the room, barely hearing Jason’s “Hey, wait!”

Mysey was in the room, but the weird part was that so was a chunk of the team. He was sprawled on one of the two full-sized beds with Goose, Jochen, Jhonas and Ryan while Roysy was on the other bed with Webby, Drew and Nate.

Everybody stared at Tyler with wide eyes, and Tyler stared back because seriously?

“Are you guys  _cuddling_?”

"No!” everybody replied with different levels of loudness and stuttering, and they were obviously lying liars because Jhony was tucked up against Ryan’s chest and Roysy still had his face buried in Mike’s hair.

“And you didn’t  _tell_ me?” Tyler huffed to make sure they understood that he was displeased and climbed onto the bed next to Derek and Nate, kicking off his shoes as he did. “I’m great at cuddling,” he told Webby with a reassuring pat to the shoulder.

The entire time Pommer had been standing in the door, staring at them all with a deer-in-the-headlights expression. What, like they’d all started cuddling only once he answered the door? Maybe he really  _was_  a little slow. But that was okay, Tyler was an equal-opportunity cuddler.

"C’mon, you guys have to make up for leaving me out of this,” he said, gesturing to Jason. Jason, for his part, looked over at Ryan and they stared at each other for a few seconds before Jason abruptly nodded and came over to the bed, climbing on next to Tyler.

“Uh, yeah, sorry about that. Some people think it’s, uh, weird, so we usually don’t tell a lot of people.”

Tyler scoffed and rolled his eyes, tucking himself up against Jason and throwing an arm over his chest. “Those people suck. Cuddle piles are  _awesome_.”

“They are,” he heard Derek agree conversationally from behind him, before he nestled against Tyler’s back and wrapped an arm around him, nuzzling his face into Tyler’s neck and snuffling loudly. Roysy was a weirdo too. That was okay, Tyler didn’t mind. Weirdos were fun.

Mike had climbed over to Jason’s other side and had laid his head on Jason’s chest, Drew was basically spooning Roysy, and Gerbs had taken it upon himself to climb on top of  _Tyler_ , which was cool, and when Tyler craned his neck back to check out the other bed (Roysy and Nate whining in protest as he did because they had been dislodged), the other five had resumed their Giant Pile of Man, so they obviously weren’t too bothered anymore either.

“We could have been doing this all along,” Tyler tsked once he had settled in again.

Jason chuckled quietly, just enough to make his chest shake under Tyler and Webby’s heads. “Yeah, we shouldn’t have doubted the Kid.”

“Never doubt the Kid,” Derek agreed, and there were drowsy rallying cries of “the Kid!” from the other bed.

Tyler smiled smugly and closed his eyes.

Damn right you never doubt the Kid.

So that was how Tyler was indoctrinated into the secret team puppy piles. Most times nobody told him they were going on, but he figured out pretty quickly that only members of a certain group of guys ever seemed to know about it, so if he saw some of them start going to a room that wasn’t theirs (and it was almost always the room that Jason or Ryan was staying in, he noticed), he would just follow suit. After the first few times people stopped giving him the stupid surprised looks and just accepted that he was doing this with them now, which, good, they should be used to him, because he didn’t plan on leaving soon. Cuddle piles were the best.

Sometimes one of the guys would make a comment like, “Oh, we’re all going to so-and-so’s room tonight” which he learned was code for “we’re all going to lay on each other like puppies,” so he always made sure he was present. One time he somehow didn’t learn that the cuddle pile was going on and Nathan showed up at his door, frowning and saying, “Come  _on_ , you’re late!” and grabbing Tyler’s wrist and dragging him to the room Millsey and Roysy were sharing, and that was when Tyler decided that Nate was definitely his team best friend.

People came and left the puppy piles over the years just as they came and left the team, and Tyler didn’t know how they could recognize fellow-cuddlers, but somehow the current group always knew which new guys would be totally into forming a handsy man-pile. Maybe it was a gift.

None of it really affected Tyler – well, it affected him the way that teammates leaving always did, but it didn’t affect who he cuddled with. Like he said, he was an equal-opportunity cuddler. He would cuddle anything willing to be cuddled, because cuddling was awesome.

He didn’t really pay much attention to who was in the pile at any given time (other than that he and Nate liked to lie on top of each other, because short guys gotta stick together) until Cody Hodgson came along.

Cody Hodgson did not seem like a cuddler. Not that most of the guys in the pile  _did_  seem like cuddlers, but if Tyler was asked to pick out which guys on his team weren’t cuddlers, he would say with a good deal of confidence that Cody Hodgson was not a cuddler.

So him showing up in the puppy pile after his trade was… _unexpected_. By which Tyler meant that he laid on top of Nathan’s chest and glared at Hodgson for a while, and Cody looked way too uncomfortable in the pile to be a true cuddler.

This was  _suspicious_.

Cody at least seemed to start relaxing a little, and then Tyler forgot to be suspicious of him for a while because the new season started and over the summer Roysy had been traded for Ott, and Otter didn’t seem like a cuddler either but he was play-wrestling on the floor with Webby on the first cuddle pile of the new (shortened) season, so maybe he was a sometimes-cuddler? And besides, Tyler had gone far too long without proper snuggling during the lockout (Jared would at least acquiesce a little while they were in Europe because Jared was the best friend ever) and he didn’t have time to stare suspiciously at everyone when he was more interested in getting hugs. So, that investigation was dropped pretty quickly too, and he kind of just forgot to go back to being suspicious of Cody. So instead he ended up lying closer to him more often than not, which didn’t mean anything, Nate was still his main snuggle-buddy, short bros for life.

And then Jason was traded and Jochen retired and Nathan was bought out and everything sucked and when Tyler got to the first cuddle pile of the 2013-14 season his immediate instinct was to go lay on top of Cody’s chest and hug him as tight as he could, so that was what he did. And if that made Cody smile a lot and rub Tyler’s back and nuzzle against his hair, that was his own prerogative. It just meant Cody had learned to be a better snuggler. Good, because Tyler needed a new primary snuggle-buddy without Gerbs around, so Cody got to be it.

By pure happenstance he ended up spending a lot more time with Cody on planes and on buses and in the locker room and at dinners and clubs and Tyler’s house and none of that meant anything but Tyler helping Cody get extra cuddling practice. Even if Cody started spending the night at Tyler’s house a couple of times a week, in Tyler’s bed. Even if they held hands when they were walking around together. Even if sometimes they definitely made out on Tyler’s couch.

He was just making sure that Cody became an expert, A-plus level cuddler. From one puppy pile buddy to another.

Only Cody shouldn’t try any of the, like, handholding and kissing stuff with anyone else, because that was only for top-level snugglers like Tyler. None of the other guys could handle it.

Sometimes, though, Tyler got the feeling that Cody was trying to do cuddling-activities without him, because he would go looking for Cody and Cody wouldn’t answer his phone or his door, so Tyler would ask the other guys if they’d seen him, and someone would hover in their doorway like Jason did years ago and say they hadn’t see him, and Tyler would have to go back to his room and sleep alone in a bed that was too big and too cold with just him in it, and he  _hated_  that, because Cody should be sleeping with him.

Unless he didn’t want to.

Well, that was fine. He could snuggle with other people if he wanted to. Tyler didn’t care. He didn’t  _want_  to snuggle with Cody, anyways.

“I don’t want to snuggle with you,” he told Cody the next day, when Cody knocked on the door to his room. He pretended not to notice the way that Cody’s face fell, but it made something drop in his stomach, too, and he didn’t like that, and well, he said he didn’t  _want_  to snuggle with Cody, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t. For Cody’s sake. Because Cody looked way too sad at the idea of not being allowed to snuggle with Tyler, which was understandable because Tyler was the best at cuddling. So he stood back to let Cody in, and Cody beamed and told him he was so sorry for not staying with him last night, something came up, but he really loved spending time with Tyler and then he held Tyler for the whole night and everything was normal again, until a day or a week or a month later when it would happen again. It kept happening, more and more often, and Tyler didn’t  _like_  that so he was going to find out where Cody was going, because whatever he was doing, Tyler definitely deserved to be there.

It wasn’t that hard, actually. Everyone had been cuddling more in Drew’s room this year, so when he went to Drew’s room and knocked on the door and Drew stood in his doorway in that weird-Pommers-way, Tyler knew that was his cue to duck under Drew’s arm the same way and  _where did Drew get all of those dogs and why wasn’t Tyler petting them already_?

“I want one,” he said solemnly, and at that moment one of the dogs – okay, wow, big dogs, where did Drew get  _wolves_? – jumped off of the bed and bounded over to Tyler, panting happily and whining and nuzzling at his hip and Tyler wanted to pet  _this_  one, definitely.

“You have very nice fur,” he told the wolf, scratching behind its ears and looking into its eyes…its very Cody-like eyes…did the wolf steal Cody’s eyes?

“Drew?” he began slowly. Drew was still standing by the door, the same way Jason had, mouth open in surprise. “First of all, you’re going to catch flies. Second, did this wolf eat Cody?”

“ _What_?” Drew yelped at the same time as the wolf whined unhappily and okay, maybe that was the wrong answer. But some of those wolves  _did_  look awfully familiar, if his normal puppy pile buddies were canines.

Puppy pile. Huh.

“Ohhhh, I get it. Everyone’s a wolf, that’s cool!”

Drew was doing that open-mouthed thing again. “It’s…I mean… _what_?”

“Dude. Does this mean I could have been snuggling puppies  _this whole time_  and nobody told me? For  _years_? Wait. Is  _Nate_  a wolf too?”

Drew didn’t look too inclined to answer, but after a pause he grimaced and nodded slowly, and  _oh_  Tyler was going to yell at him when he saw that little bastard again, and maybe tap his nose with a rolled-up newspaper and then they were definitely playing fetch because Tyler was an ace at playing fetch.

Through all of this probably-wolf-Cody was snuffling at his hand and shifting from foot to foot, so Tyler leaned down and kissed the top of his head and said, “C’mon, buddy,” before leading the way back to the bed, which barely had any room on it thanks to the pile of fluffy bodies but luckily Tyler was an expert at worming his way into snuggle piles and found himself a place near the top of the bed, Cody jumping up on the bed to curl around his head, and then one of the smaller wolves, kind of like an actual puppy, really, climbed up onto his lap and it was white and fluffy and lanky and Rasmus, maybe? Cool. He scratched a hand over Rasmus’s flank and he flopped over, tongue lolling out, and the rest took that as their cue to crowd around Tyler, looking for pets and scratches and snuggles.

He glanced over at Drew as he carefully climbed back onto the bed. “Have the guys in the cuddle piles  _always_  been wolves?”

Drew shrugged and nodded gingerly. “Yeah. Well, except for Steve. You and him were the only humans.”

"So what you’re saying is, I’m special.”

Drew laughed and Cody licked the top of his head, so Tyler was taking that as a yes.

Cool.

(And the next morning, when he woke up, Cody was smiling down at him like he was the best thing in the world and kissed him firmly, morning breath and all (dog breath?) and whispered, “You’re amazing, oh my God. I love you so much,” and okay, maybe what they had wasn’t just a snuggle-buddies thing, but that was okay, because Tyler whispered, “I love you too,” and Marcus, who had fallen on the floor next to them during the night, started making gagging sounds with his eyes still shut like he was sleeping, and Tyler didn’t even care because Marcus could be jealous all he wanted of their awesome relationship, but Tyler was the only one who got this, because Cody  _loved_  him.

_So_  cool.)


	4. Sabres: Jhonas Post-Game I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (This is the first fic written after Yours was posted.)
> 
> Short fluffy fic I wrote because Jhonas looked so damn despondent after each goal he let in last night and each reaction was sadder than the last. 
> 
> 10/12/14

They knew something was wrong when Jhonas didn’t show up in Drew’s room with the rest of the pack after the game. The game had been a shitshow, there was no way to deny it, and after letting in six goals they all knew Jhonas was blaming himself. It was plain to see right there on the ice, how he skated to the side of the goal while the Blackhawks celebrated, his head down, shoulders hunched, not moving. He wasn’t even frustrated in the way that some goalies got, hitting the crossbar or bashing their stick against the ice or throwing things. He just put his head down and he got still and he got silent. And that was so, so much worse.

“Is Jhonas…?” Nikita didn’t even need to finish his question for everyone to pick up on his meaning. With a sigh Drew leaned over to put a hand behind his head to pull him closer, kissed his forehead and messed up his hair before levering himself into a standing position while pushing Nikita back down so that he was once again nestled between Rasmus and Mysey.

“I’ll go get him.”

He knew he would have to be the one to do it; he wasn’t the alpha, but everyone was silently expecting him to do it anyway, to make everything better. Drew didn’t want to tell them that he wasn’t sure things would be that easy.

With a tight smile that nobody even bothered trying to return, he closed the door on the rest of the pack behind him and picked his way down the hall to Jhonas’s room.

It was at times like this that he severely regretted the new NHLPA stipulations about roommates, because getting Jhonas to answer his door was proving to be a lot more difficult than, say, having a roommate open it for him.

“Jhony,” he called, knocking on the door again and trying to keep his voice low enough that he didn’t disturb the guys in the other rooms. “Jhonas, come on. I want to talk to you.”

There was no response from inside, but if Drew focused he could hear Jhonas’s breathing, his heartbeat. He was definitely in there; he was just ignoring Drew.

(He tried not to ask himself if Jhony would have ignored Jason or Ryan like this. He doubted it, because Jhonas would do anything for them, Ryan in particular.)

Deciding to switch tactics, he lowered his voice enough that it wouldn’t carry too far down the hall, but would be audible to a wolf who was paying attention. “Jhony, the pack is worried about you. The  _cubs_  are worried about you. They’re afraid you’re mad at them.”

And, well, nobody had  _said_  that out loud, but they all knew it was true. They all felt guilty for making this worse for Jhonas: for not scoring more goals, for not doing a better job of keeping the puck out of their zone, for not defending him. He knew that the defensemen had taken the loss particularly badly, because they felt like they’d failed to protect their goalie. Nikita, having been a healthy scratch, was just concerned for their goalie, the only pack member not to have shown up yet. Rasmus, on the other hand, had entered Drew’s room, curled up on the edge of his bed with his face pressed against Marcus’s side, and had refused to move ever since other than to haul Nikita closer to cover up his back. Mike and Mysey were blaming themselves enough for all of the defensemen combined, but Rasmus was taking failing their goaltender particularly poorly.

And if the rustling noises from inside the room were any indication, playing off of their guilt would probably be his best bet in getting Jhonas to answer the door.

“The kids are upset,” he repeated in a somewhat conversational tone. “Nik is asking after you and Rasmus won’t even talk to anyone. Mysey and Webby aren’t looking too hot either. Everyone’s blaming themselves, bud, but we’re blaming ourselves for letting you down.”

It was those words that finally induced a reaction from the goalie, resulting in a padded thump as his feet hit the floor and the sound of his lock disengaging a moment later.

“You didn’t let me down,” he said fiercely when he swung his door open seconds later. “I let all of you down.”

Drew cast him an incredulous look. “They literally had twice as many shots on net as us and our puck possession was nearly nonexistent. I’m pretty sure we screwed this up just as badly if not a whole lot worse than you did.”

Jhonas shook his head, his eyes bright in the way they only got when he was feeling particularly fervently about something. “I let in  _six goals_. We lost the game because of me.”

“You didn’t let the puck keep ending up back in our zone, buddy. That was all on us. And it was our fault for not scoring enough goals to beat that. You heard what Gorgie and Gio were saying after the game. We have to do this as a team. If we win as a team, we lose as a team. And tonight was definitely on all of us. We were all off.”

And there wasn’t anything Jhonas could say to deny that seeing as it was so true. They were definitely coming together better than last year, had improved communication and felt like they had a common goal, but the team was a huge work in progress. Tonight’s many failures were a group effort.

“You guys were relying on me to keep the puck out of the net,” Jhony began slowly. Drew snorted and shook his head.

“And you were relying on us to keep the puck away from  _you_  and to score goals. We all dropped the ball. And if we’re going to celebrate as a team, then we have to self-flagellate as a team, too. So if you’re going to beat yourself up over this, at least come do it with the pack.”

Something in Jhonas’s eyes looked ready to fight, but he paused and watched Drew for a long moment before huffing loudly and turning to go back into his room, only to turn off the lights and grab his phone before returning to the door. “Fine,” he grumbled as if he was being so put-upon, pushing Drew out of the doorframe so that he could pull the door shut behind him as he exited, “But the cubs aren’t allowed to beat themselves up. They’re too little.”

Drew was hard-pressed not to laugh as he ushered his little Swedish goalie down the hall back towards his own room.

“How about you be the one to tell them that?”

Jhonas didn’t say anything, but Drew could tell from his furrowed eyebrows and stern expression that he was planning to.

Multiple heads shot up when Drew opened the door, and everyone began shifting around when they saw Jhonas come in, trying to immediately create a space for him in his favorite spot in the middle of the bed with pillows. Webby looked ready to climb off the bed completely to make space, but Jhony rolled his eyes and pushed him back down with a hand on his chest as he climbed onto the bed and made for the space that had been created for him.

Everything was quiet as he squirmed around until he was comfortable, but the tense atmosphere of the waiting cubs was obvious as they nervously watched him, waiting for permission to get closer.

Rolling his eyes again, Jhony stroked a hand over Rasmus’s hair before tangling his fingers in it and tugging, saying, “Come on, get over here.” At the same time he tapped Mysey’s temple expectantly and poked Nikita with his foot. Nikita scrambled up the bed to sprawl over Jhonas’s lower half with no qualms, and Mysey tried not to act so desperate as he crawled over to wrap around Jhonas’s left side, worming between the goalie and Cody and Enzo.

Rasmus didn’t move at first, until Jhonas tugged on his hair again and said, “Come on, up. This is a defensive cuddle pile, get over here.”

To prove his point, he let go of Rasmus’s hair for a moment to swat at Mark’s shoulder and only had to glance towards the end of the bed to meet Mike’s eyes, watching him meaningfully until he averted his eyes but edged closer to Jhonas. Only once both Webby and Mark had shifted closer did Rasmus finally begin slowly rolling over so that his face was pressed this time against Jhonas’s stomach. Jhony had returned his hand to Rasmus’s soft, white-blond hair and stroked it carefully as he settled in again.

“Good,” he said with a smugly satisfied air to find everything in what he had deemed its proper place. “Now stop being stupid and quit blaming yourselves.”

That caused some uncomfortable shifting from the defensemen and the pack as a whole.

“We let you down,” Marcus mumbled muffledly into the blankets. Sam made a whining noise of agreement.

“We were supposed to win it for you,” Zemgus muttered, and it had to be bad when the guy who had scored a goal in both games so far was blaming himself.

Jhonas’s resulting sigh was loud, but with the sort of huffy air that gave Drew hope that things were getting better.

“And I was supposed to win it for you,” Jhony replied with irritated ease. “It is not your fault if we lose, because we  _all_  lose, together, as a team.”

“ _We’re all in this together_ ,” Tyler sang quietly until Webby threatened to shove him off the bed.

Rasmus, who had been silent so far, finally whispered against the fabric of Jhonas’s oversized sleep shirt, “But you were great. It was our fault, for letting them get so close to you so much. I’m sorry.”

At this Jhonas sighed, loud and gusty and obnoxious enough that it was obviously comedic. “And it is my fault for choosing to be a goalie as a child. It is nobody’s fault.”

“Including yours,” Rasmus returned quickly, and oh, he was shrewd, wasn’t he. The rest of the pack squirmed and mumbled their agreement.

From his standing vantage point Drew could see the torn expression on Jhonas’s face, but it was Rasmus’s prompting “ _Right?_  Because otherwise, it is our faults too…” and a squeeze on the hip from Mysey that had Jhonas finally shaking his head and grumbling, “Fine, fine. It’s everybody’s fault and nobody’s fault and we will do better next time.”

“Damn straight,” Mike grumbled, with just enough ferventness that it sent some of the cubs into giggle fits.

“So you got that?” Drew prompted Jhonas, just to see him turn and glare. “We’re all taking the equal blame for this one, right?”

“God, yes, fine, right, okay, you’re right.”

Jhonas was doing his best to look put-upon, but his smile was giving him away.

“I know,” Drew replied, making his returning smile particularly smarmy and smug just to piss his goalie off. Jhony, instead of rising to the bait, simply rolled his eyes and said, “Get over here, stupid, you’re going to keep the cubs up all night at this rate.”

He sounded so suddenly put-out that Drew couldn’t help but laugh even as he climbed onto the bed and wedged his way in between Zemgus and Mark. He reached out and passed a hand through Jhonas’s hair, stroking gently at first before ruffling it up just to hear him squawk indignantly.

“Who’s keeping them up now?” he asked as the cubs started squirming around again.

“It is still you!” Jhony protested, sounding offended, and now everyone was smiling, even Rasmus.

“I’m just checking on all of my pack,” Drew replied with a lofty tone, and he wasn’t lying because he  _was_. He just also enjoyed taunting them.

Jhonas’s grumbles of disbelief brought a few chuckles from the rest of the pack, but Drew was mostly focused on Rasmus, who was burying a small, contented smile against where Jhonas’s shirt had been rucked up to reveal smooth, pale skin. And a glance at Jhonas’s face showed that he had lost some of that tenseness around his eyes, the stiffness in his motions.

The loss had been everyone’s fault, and they would all blame themselves for it, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t face it as a team and move on as a team and improve as a team. And maybe, if Drew got his act together, they could do all of that as a pack, too.


	5. Sabres/Flyers: Stafford/Giroux Soulmate AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompted: Soulmates au From your Wolfy World. Any pairing/way you want to interpret. (If that was one of your NoNo ANYTHING that leads to more wolf cuddles) I LOVE your writing and all the team love makes me so happy. The last fic with All the cuddles to make Jhony(& Rookies) feel better! Team love is the Best love. (IS this a good time to tell you I was the original prompter that started it all out with my desire for Puppy Cuddles? Because you have created a monster!)You are amazing, and make me so happy
> 
> Soulmate AUs and werewolves are two of my favorite things, and for some reason I decided that Stafford/Giroux was a pairing that I wanted to create. Still don't regret it tbh but I will openly admit it is incredibly weird and has no real-world basis to it whatsoever. I picked it because at the time they were both the alphas of their packs in the AU.
> 
> Note that this is an AU to the AU, and is not technically "canon."
> 
> 10/14/14

They said you could tell your soulmate by their scent. Everybody had their own unique scent, but the scent of your soulmate would rise above the rest, get into your head and grab on and make you take notice, and eventually you could use it to track them down. It got a little weird, seeing as only werewolves had soulmate scents and the ability to scent their soulmates so you spent a lot of time sniffing the air like you had congestion issues, but it was more than worth it to find the person who was made for you, the person who would be closer to you than anyone else in the world.

They always talked about how you would find their scent better than anything else, would pick out individual scents that together made something beautiful. Everyone always had a poetic description, too: “Lilac blooms and nutmeg,” Jochen had said with a smile, his eyes far-away and thinking of his wife. “The ocean, pine trees and gingerbread cookies,” had been Hank’s answer.

“Flowers after a spring rain,” Jason had murmured with a dazed smile.

So when Drew was in his third year in the NHL and felt like he was slapped in the face with a smell he couldn’t deny, he was expecting something more like what you would find in a selection of air fresheners. Citrus, maybe, or like, linens or mountains or fucking pinecones.

“What’s with the face?” Roysy asked, skating up beside where Drew had frozen in his pre-game stretches and nudging him with his hip.

“Do you smell…butter?”

Roysy skated a circle around him and gave him an assessing look while inhaling loudly and obviously. “Nope. I can smell your gross ass, and someone on the Flyers needs to wash their jock more often, but no butter. Why?” His eyes suddenly lit with an unholy gleam. “Do you smell something?”

Drew skated a few feet away and tried to focus on his stretching routine. “I don’t know. Maybe? But it’s weird. It smells like butter and, like…” His face scrunched up as he spit out the words, “ _Processed cheese_.”

“Oh my God,” Derek breathed in burgeoning joy, “Your soulmate is a concessions stand.”

It only got worse from there.

In the cold recycled air of the crowded Wells Fargo Center, it could have been anyone who smelled like butter and warm processed cheese and made some ridiculously stupid part of Drew’s brain perk up and think,  _that one_. It could have been someone in the stands, or a staff member, or – God forbid – a Flyers player.

“It could be a mistake,” Jaro said consolingly, patting Drew’s head. “One time, this girl smelled like cinnamon and fried foods and everything heavenly and I think, ‘This is the one. This is the best smell ever.’ But then I find she just make the churros at Six Flags and I was hungry. Could be the same thing!”

It probably wasn’t as comforting as he thought. Especially when Roysy started crowing about Drew’s love affair with a concessions stand again.

He would have worried more about what exactly he was smelling, but he never got a chance to look around after the game before the team was being hustled on a bus to the airport so they could play the Islanders the next night, and nobody from the Flyers or their organization tried to track him down (he hoped it wasn’t someone in the stands, or he’d never find them again), so he figured the guys must have been right and it was a fluke.

A really greasy fluke.

But then it happened again when they returned to Philadelphia a month later, that overpowering butter and whatever cheese-substitute was in a “single” smell that nobody else could pick out of the crowd. If it was a concessions stand, someone else would have smelled it. It had to be someone in Philadelphia, but as to that person’s identity, Drew was lost. Trying to track a smell in a hockey arena full of people and a functioning ventilation system was nearly impossible, especially when he had a game to worry about.

(He refused to acknowledge that he had other things to worry about too when they played the Flyers, like a certain alpha who hadn’t looked his way once in two years now since he’d left Buffalo, and instead tried to focus on other things, like how annoying Carter and Richards were, or the errant scent of butter and whatever counted as “American” cheese.

It only worked so well.)

He figured he would be able to tell if it was a Flyers player when the team came to Buffalo in a week.

But when the Flyers came to town, Drew didn’t smell it at all. He made a point of trying to subtly sniff out the Flyers team (not an easy feat when they had some sort of turf war going on in their pack meaning there were a lot of wolves constantly on-edge – somehow, though, even that had no apparent effect on their ability to keep beating the Sabres, even though the Sabres had been slowly falling apart ever since Danny left, and maybe that was what held the Flyers together, the fact that they had Danny), but found nothing. Someone there had some serious congestion issues if the amount of menthol they had slathered themselves in meant anything, but there was no cheesy-buttery smell.

It must have been someone at the Wells Fargo Center. A staff member who didn’t travel with the team, or a returning fan. But it wasn’t anyone on the Flyers.

He pushed the thought out of his mind and tried to focus on the rest of the season. They missed the playoffs and then Drew was too busy licking his wounds and trying to prepare for the next year, to bring Buffalo back to where it had been in his rookie year (in his Danny-year) to worry about the strange smell of a maybe-soulmate maybe-snack.

If they were meant to meet, they would find each other.

(The next time they played the Flyers in the fall of Drew’s fourth season, the team fell apart all over again, and nothing smelled like butter and processed cheese. And the time after that, in Philadelphia, it was the same. Whatever the scent had been, it must have been a fluke.

Which would make sense. Soulmate scents were supposed to smell like the names of laundry detergent, anyway.)

~~~

Claude didn’t want to find his soulmate.

Well, that wasn’t true. Once upon a time he did, when he was a wide-eyed cub trying to break into the NHL and expecting to find his soulmate there just waiting to sweep him away and also have sex with him a lot because Claude was a pretty damn horny cub and he was sure his soulmate was going to be  _bangin’_.

And then he attended some sort of pack-welcoming get-together just before the 2007 training camp and was in his wolf form careening around R.J. Umberger’s backyard trying to catch Richie’s tail (and he couldn’t quite figure out who was the Philadelphia alpha yet, because he wasn’t sure there  _was_  one, but Richie had come right up to him and butted heads and rubbed along Claude’s flank like he knew what he was doing before nipping his ear and running off, meaning Claude  _had_ to give chase, and out of everyone here, mostly extended pack outside of the team like training staff and equipment guys with their families, Mike felt the most dominant, the most alpha) when his oversized paws got caught up under him and he faceplanted into the dirt as he caught the briefest hint on the wind of vanilla and snow and something metallic and  _mine_.

He would have been embarrassed to look like such a puppy in front of the pack he was trying to impress if he wasn’t so busy scrambling to get his feet under himself so that he could track down the source of the smell. And when he did so, he nearly tripped again, because the smell was coming from  _Danny Brière_  and it was beautiful and amazing and  _Claude’s_.

But Danny, he quickly learned, was not.

When he actually got to greet Danny, tail wagging embarrassingly fast and his tongue lolling out of his mouth, the older man had crouched down and rubbed his hands over Claude’s ears, laughing, “Well hello there!” and proceeded to scratch his hands down Claude’s flank and  _oh_ , that was nice, too. All of it was nice. He had to get closer, to catch the smell, had to press his nose up against the t-shirt covering Danny’s chest and root around a bit and Danny laughed like he really  _was_  a puppy and not a sexy sexy wolf scenting his soulmate, which was not optimal but Claude could accept it. The scent may not have been strong but it was there, and it was enough to make Claude want to dopily follow Danny wherever he went.

(He didn’t notice Richie watching from a distance, posture stiff and tight. He didn’t see Danny glance over his head to meet the wolf’s eyes as he stroked his hands over Claude, a question and a comment and nothing at all. What he  _did_  notice was that when months from now and in the years to come, whenever Danny told him to steer clear of Richie and his group, the ones who partied too much and drank and got Laviolette up in arms and split the pack in two, Richie was always glaring at them, and Claude decided that Danny had to be right, because Danny was always right and besides, nobody could hate Danny. He must have judged Richards wrong, that first night.)

(Claude didn’t know that he was the first cub Richie ever lost, and he lost him right there on that first night in Umberger’s backyard, when Claude had his nose pressed against Danny’s chest to chase the scent of vanilla and snow and home and Mike had to watch as the cub he had chosen for his own was lured away by a veteran alpha who didn’t trust his judgment. Claude didn’t know that the ensuing fight over territory, over  _pack_  that would eventually split the pack in two was fought as much over control, over the alpha position, as it was over him.

He just knew that anyone who disliked Danny had to be a bad person, because Danny was his favorite thing in the world.)

He didn’t see Danny for nearly a year after that, but the thought of that scent, of wanting to earn a spot on the Flyers so he could get back to it, was all the motivation he needed. (Danny hadn’t commented on his own scent, but maybe he was just waiting until Claude was older or for Claude to make the team.)

When he saw Danny again at the next pre-training camp pack party, the scent was gone and no matter how hard Claude searched he couldn’t find it, just picked up on the traces of Danny’s own scent, baby powder and coffee and his pups. His wife. And none of that made Claude’s heart flutter, made his stomach feel light, but Danny smiled like he was happy to see him and hugged him and that was enough for Claude, for now. Danny never commented on his scent, at the pack meet or during Claude’s too-brief debut, and Claude started to think that it was because they truly weren’t soulmates. That scent, whatever it was, was a one-time thing. Danny probably just had some really nice candles in his house.

It didn’t matter to Claude if they weren’t soulmates, because just being around Danny felt good. Danny was an alpha so comfortable in his skin and easy in his leadership that it spread to everyone around him. Claude would take that.

And the next season, his real rookie season, he gladly did. Danny wasn’t his soulmate and was too wrapped up in his family for Claude to ever think of trying to get in there, but he was a good alpha and didn’t deserve the growing tension with Richards’s camp.

And then that February the Buffalo Sabres came to town, and in the middle of skating he found himself whipping past a cloud of  _vanillasnowmetal_ mine and at least this time he didn’t fall flat on his face, but it was a close thing.

It still spooked him for the rest of the game.

It could always be a fan, he reminded himself. With the ventilation in here, it could have easily been someone in the stands whose scent made Claude want to curl up inside of their heart. Or maybe someone just bought the same candles as Danny did.

(He really had to find out where those candles were from, so he could buy all of them forever.)

But when the Sabres were back a month later and so was the scent that made Claude’s heart swoop in his chest – that was when he put it all together.

Danny had smelled that way because at the end of the last season, he’d been in Buffalo. With the Buffalo pack. And somebody in that pack smelled like home, and their residual scent had still been on Danny when they first met and that made Claude inexplicably angry. He’d told himself that he was just fine with Danny not being his soulmate, but apparently he was wrong because even the implication that he had a soulmate, a soulmate who wasn’t Danny Brière, made his fists clench and his jaw tighten.

What the fuck would he want with a Sabre? He didn’t give a shit about anyone on their team, and he didn’t  _want_  anybody else. He wanted Danny, as much as he could have him.

And so before their game in Buffalo Claude covered himself in enough Vicks VapoRub to clear the sinuses of a horse and he ignored everybody in a Buffalo uniform. The Flyers won the game, naturally, and nobody asked Claude why he smelled like he’d showered in mouthwash.

He didn’t want anybody to try to be his soulmate. What good would a soulmate do other than to make him pine for somebody he didn’t even want to know and make him want to leave a team like the Flyers for a team like  _Buffalo_? (Danny had chosen to leave Buffalo. Claude never wanted to go somewhere that Danny would voluntarily leave.)

Claude had originally been excited for a soulmate, but facing the reality, he decided that he didn’t want a soulmate if that soulmate wasn’t Danny. And even if Danny  _wasn’t_  his soulmate, the way he smiled at Claude, the way he ruffled his hair and gave him advice, and curled up next to him in their wolf forms – Claude didn’t know why he’d want anything else.

Investing in peppermint oil and wearing it before every game against the Sabres began to feel like common practice, and if the rest of the pack found it odd, they didn’t comment. (They largely didn’t pay attention to what Claude did anymore, because it didn’t directly affect the opposite half of the pack. Choosing sides was becoming less an unconscious habit and more of a tension-filled political choice. Either you supported Danny as your alpha, or you supported Richards. For Claude, there was never a choice.)

And then Danny was getting a divorce, and he offered for Claude to move in with him, and he let Claude get close to him, to his cubs and be a part of the  _family_  and Claude knew that his choice had been right. Screw whoever on the Sabres thought that he was worth Claude’s time. Claude had all the family he would ever need right here, with Danny, with their pack.

He didn’t want anyone else.

~~~

Claude didn’t see the buyout coming. He’d heard the rumors – hell, he  _lived_  the rumors – but he honestly had never expected it to happen until his phone started vibrating with messages from management, from his teammates.

None of the messages were from Danny.

Things had been…weird, since Claude moved out and Coots moved in. Claude didn’t mind another cub getting to know Danny, getting to experience what a good alpha he was (and that was so much easier now that Richie and most of his crew were gone), but the way that he and Danny had left things off…

Danny was a good alpha. He was a great alpha. But he put his family ahead of the pack, and it had smarted the first time that Claude realized that he was not, in fact, considered in Danny’s mind as a part of that family. He put his kids first, and everything else came second. That wouldn’t have hurt if Claude hadn’t found himself included in the “everything else.”

Over the years he’d confirmed that Danny was not, in fact, his soulmate, and that Danny actually didn’t want a real romantic relationship with him at all. Claude could accept that because he still got Danny’s love, still got his affection, still got to be the favorite cub, the chosen pack member who got to see inside his house and his family and his life and his heart, and sometimes, if he entertained himself that there could be more, nobody had to know.

But then Danny found out, and made the executive decision that Claude’s crush on him just Would Not Do, and had made things so intensely uncomfortable in his house that Claude had had no choice but to leave to try to salvage what he could of their friendship, of their pack relationship. He knew Danny was trying to do right by him, but that didn’t stop it from hurting. That didn’t stop him from feeling bitter.

And yet, even with their greatly decreased communication, he still expected Danny to tell him when he was bought out.

But Danny left silently, barely a word to the team, and left behind an alpha-less pack who had nobody in mind for an alpha because they’d never predicted needing one and Danny hadn’t groomed anyone to replace him.

And so Claude was left without an alpha, without a mentor, and without a soulmate.

(He’d been blocking out the scents of anyone he played against for long enough now that he wasn’t even sure if his possible-soulmate was still in the league, let alone still on the Sabres. And for the last few years, he hadn’t really cared.)

Kimmo, as Danny’s long-time beta, took over the general care and operation of the pack, but he wasn’t taking over the alpha position. It appeared that everyone was leaving that for Claude whether he wanted it or not.

(He emphatically  _did not_.)

For the time being, he was just worried about how Danny refused to answer his calls or texts. He didn’t know what he had done wrong to make Danny block him out completely, but he knew that he wasn’t ready to lead a team  _and_  a pack on his own. He wasn’t ready to be an alpha when he felt so keenly in his heart like he needed an alpha of his own. All he wanted was to find Danny and curl up against him as small as he could and pretend that nothing had changed, because then maybe things would start making sense again and everyone would stop assuming he could take on all of the pressures of leading every damn thing in the Flyers franchise because he  _couldn’t_. He could barely care for himself, let alone a pack.

When Danny finally called him the day after he signed his new contract in Montreal, Claude was relieved enough that he could cry.

“What did I do?” he asked immediately, voice too thin and too tense. “You just – you  _left_  and-“

“I had to, Claude,” Danny answered smoothly, his voice sad and gentle and soothing, and this was why Danny was a good alpha, because he made everything feel calmer, feel safe. “And I – I didn’t want to leave Philadelphia. I didn’t want to leave you, or – or the pack. And even though I saw it coming, I guess I still took the buyout poorly.”

“They’re all full of shit,” Claude grumbled, remembering the management. “Every single one of them.”

Danny immediately tsked and said, “Now Claude, that’s not true,” and that was how they got some of their normalcy back. It wasn’t the same, not by a long shot, but they would text, sometimes, or talk (even more sparingly), and they would meet up when Philly played Montreal, and maybe things could still be okay. They weren’t  _right_  – the Flyers pack had no alpha and Claude was relying on one who was no longer there, who was very publically adopting new cubs in Montreal already – but they were a new normal that Claude would accept.

He would always take whatever Danny would give hm.

It just happened to be towards the end of that season, that first year without Danny, that Claude realized just how much Drew Stafford of the Buffalo Sabres apparently hated him.

It was around that time when the Sabres visited the Flyers during one of their last regular season games that Claude realized that Drew Stafford smelled like vanilla and snow and metal and home and that Drew Stafford glared at him like he’d just murdered a puppy and laughed about it.

It wasn’t until the next season that he realized that all of the above had to do with Danny Brière.

~~~

Drew didn’t  _hate_  Claude Giroux. He just despised him with every fiber of his being. Those were two totally different things.

See, he  _despised_  Giroux for a reason. Giroux was, and there were no doubts about it, his replacement. Danny had left the pack without a word and had just as quickly reattached himself to Giroux. It wasn’t obvious until Giroux was playing with the Flyers more often, but Drew recognized it right away when he saw it, because he knew how Danny used to be with him.

Danny used to treat him like that. But then again, Drew also used to be Danny’s cub, until Danny realized that Drew wasn’t good enough for that.

Drew didn’t blame him.

On some level he could admit to himself that he was jealous of Giroux, insanely, intensely jealous because Giroux wasn’t the cub Danny was stuck with; he was the cub that Danny  _wanted_ , the cub Danny invited to  _live with him_  and allowed around his family. The cub he was proud to keep.

And what made it worse, what made Drew realize just how much Danny had disliked him, was when he left the Flyers. Because while Danny played for the Flyers, Drew could pretend that Giroux would end up just as he was, that Danny would move on and leave him behind too, and then he could pretend to himself that Danny had really cared for him once, too, out of more than just pity and a sense of obligation.

But then Danny went to Montreal, and all reports said he was still close friends with Claude Giroux.

Claude was still Danny’s cub. Because Danny wanted him. Because he was a good wolf and a good pack member and somebody Danny wanted to be around, and he had left Drew without a word, without a single backwards glance because Drew was none of those things, and for that, he hated Claude Giroux. He hated the evidence of all the things he never was and never would be, never  _could_  be. He hated the living breathing representation of why he wasn’t good enough.

He hated that Jason and Ryan left the pack, left them alone, left  _him_  alone because of course they did, because  _everyone_  did, but he hated most of all that Claude Giroux got to keep Danny even after he was gone, and Drew couldn’t hold onto an alpha if it killed him.

(Sometimes, he thought it might.)

The team had already hit rock bottom, but Drew was fairly sure that it could somehow get even worse based on how their season started, and he knew he wasn’t piloting the pack so well either. Everyone was constantly tense and on-edge, clingy and tearful and agitated and all looking to him for answers he could never give. There were so many cubs, cubs everywhere, new cubs, old cubs, Amerks cubs, European cubs, cubs who were actually fully-grown adults who just needed increased attention like cubs because their pack was so fucked up they felt like they had no support – Drew was inundated with cubs, and he didn’t know how to help them. He couldn’t even say he was barely keeping the pack afloat when he felt like he was going under.

Playing the Flyers in January had literally no place on his list of cares or concerns – he didn’t have a lot of time to dedicate to his seething dislike of Giroux anymore, what with a pack to ruin and all – until he skated onto the ice for the pre-game skate and was overwhelmed with the scent of the greasiest, most pungent combination of butter and processed cheese that he’d ever had the misfortune of choking on. The offended look he sent in the direction of Philadelphia’s half of the ice was reflexive.

What he didn’t expect was to find Claude Giroux openly staring back at him.

What almost made him trip over his own skates was when Giroux smiled softly and raised one gloved hand to shyly wave across the ice.

And what nearly made his brain decide to just stop functioning then and there was the sudden thought of how appetizing that butter-and-cheese smell really was, and how much he wanted to approach it and hold it and take it home.

(Dimly, some subconscious part of Drew’s mind noted the marked absence of menthol in the air. His conscious brain was too busy having horrified thoughts of hugging a concessions stand while being laughed at by Derek Roy to realize this.)

At a complete loss for how to interpret this, Drew let his months of dislike take control and decided that it was all a ploy to distract him from the game, and forced himself to turn his back on Giroux and skate over to Matty and Tyler to talk about their power play.

He ignored how he could feel Giroux’s eyes on him for the rest of the game.

~~~

For some reason, despite having played against Stafford for years, now that Claude had identified him as the source of the only candle scent he’d ever wanted to buy, it was nearly impossible to take his mind off of the man. He’d spent a truly embarrassing amount of time this summer doing research and perhaps watching every video and interview with Stafford in existence (and yes, it was extensive and obsessive enough to be even more embarrassing than groping a cop, and oh God, what if Drew judged him for that, and oh God, why did he suddenly  _care_  so much?) and he maybe had a few saved to his phone for when he needed a pick-me-up and he’d just possibly gotten a little too emotional watching Stafford cry over Miller leaving.

It was like once he’d acknowledged that Stafford was his probably-soulmate, all of those angered notions about never wanting a soulmate who wasn’t Danny, about not caring about some loser on the fucking  _Sabres_ , were completely overrun by every romantic thought that Claude’s younger self had ever had about soulmates and true love and finding someone who would always want him no matter what.

(He was finding with time that Danny was not this person and never could have been. Danny cared about him, but he didn’t – he didn’t care like that. Not enough, or in the right way.)

And it was while riding that months-long wave of dazed stupidity in combination with being too-excited for January to arrive already that Claude didn’t really shower after morning practice the day of their game against the Sabres, just so his scent would be at its strongest. Just so he could see what Stafford would do.

(Wolves never knew what they smelled like to others, seeing as they couldn’t very well smell themselves when they were used to their own scent, and nobody could scent them as well as their mate did. But Claude was self-assured enough to believe that he probably smelled pretty fucking sexy, and he secretly hoped that he emanated enough sex-on-ice scent that he both knocked Stafford senseless and also distracted him enough that they could win the game.)

Drew – Stafford – Claude was going to call him Drew because he’d watched enough videos to feel like he knew the guy without ever talking to him – didn’t disappoint. Shortly after skating onto the ice, he paused, sniffed the air and then turned suddenly to stare accusatorily in Claude’s direction. When his eyes lit on Claude’s they held.

And like the abruptly lovestruck idiot he was, Claude lost all sense of bravado and confidence he felt and he smiled and gave a little wave like the world’s most embarrassing loser and Stafford stared at him incredulously and looked like his brain was breaking before he turned around and refused to acknowledge Claude for the rest of the game, and yeah, that actually really hurt.

It still did nothing to dissuade Claude from seeking Drew out after the game.

~~~

Drew was pretty intensely ignoring that Giroux smelled like butter and processed cheese and love because he didn’t fucking know the guy and also professed to hate him pretty avidly, and if his wolf wanted to curl around him and bite him and call him his own forever, then his wolf was emotionally exhausted and also losing it a little bit and should have been taken as no indication of his true feelings.

In fact, he was so intensely ignoring Giroux and his greasy scent that he walked right into him when he exited the dressing room, and his only thought as he stared into the other man’s eyes (so close, how did they get so close?) was to say, “You smell like a fucking fryer.”

He would have said it wasn’t his proudest moment, if Giroux hadn’t nonsensically replied, “You’re a candle.” At least they were on par with each other.

“What the fuck are you doing here, Giroux?” Drew heard himself ask, trying to snap out of this, this whatever-it-was and get himself back into the headspace of railing against Giroux’s existence and not thinking about how beautiful his eyes were or how much Drew wanted to cup his cheek and make him smile because he’d seen the pictures and he had the best smile-

“You know why,” Giroux replied in a voice that only shook a little, and this was all expressly unfair.

“We’ve played against each other for years. Why now? You can’t be expecting me to believe-”

“I blocked my scent!” Giroux blurted, too loud for a public hallway and enough to make Drew grab him by his forearm and drag him into an empty training room. (Letting go of Giroux’s arm hurt more than he expected.)

“Congratulations?”

Giroux frowned and Drew didn’t feel nearly as vindicated as he should have. “You asshole, I mean that I masked my scent so that you couldn’t smell me. I knew – I could tell years ago that somebody on your team was – was for me. I just didn’t figure out until last year that it was you.”

“And that, what, made you decide to reveal yourself in all of your buttery glory so I would come running into your arms?”

“I really don’t know what’s with your preoccupation with trans fats, bro.”

“Butter doesn’t have trans fats, jackass, that’s margarine.”

Apparently, becoming increasingly aggressive over the categorization of butter was a better option than addressing his feelings. Drew was surprisingly okay with that.

(He was also more than a little smug when Giroux began to appear frustrated.)

“Am I expected to give a shit? I’m trying to tell you that you’re, like, the other half of my heart and you want to fight about  _dairy products_?”

“ _No_ , what I want to fight about is why you think it’s okay to purposely hide from me for years and then just appear one day and expect me to want any of this. I scented you  _years_  ago. I was ready to meet you  _years ago_ , and then your scent disappeared and I figured I must have smelled someone in the stands and that I’d meet them again if we were supposed to meet. I didn’t think it was just some little prick deciding he didn’t feel like having a soulmate.”

Claude’s scent turned sour, angry, and the step he took closer to Drew had them sharing the same air, their chests scant inches apart.

“It was kind of fucking surprising, okay? I didn’t think – I didn’t want it to be you, okay? I didn’t want it to be  _anyone_  because there was only one person I wanted to be my soulmate and he wasn’t it, and I wasted years of my life pining after him only for him to start pushing me away when he found out how I felt about him.”

Drew could feel himself closing off as Giroux spoke, could see the exact moment that Giroux realized it.

Slowly and flatly, he asked, “Do you honestly expect me to feel  _sorry_  for you because you aren’t Danny’s favorite anymore? Are you honestly looking for sympathy from  _me_  about him pushing you away?”

He could see it in Giroux’s eyes, when he realized that he’d made a mistake.

“Danny didn’t leave you. He left your team, but he didn’t leave  _you_.”

“But he did,” Giroux whispered in a choked voice, “He doesn’t talk to me as much – he wouldn’t talk to me at all after the buyout – and he’s got a new pack now-”

“ _He didn’t leave you_ ,” Drew repeated with gritted teeth, so frustrated and ready to be done with this conversation ten minutes ago. “He still talks to you, he still counts you as his, you’re still his – his  _cub_ ,” and Drew was proud of himself for only letting his voice crack a little on that last word. “When he left Buffalo, he was gone. He didn’t talk to anyone and he never looked back. I haven’t spoken to him since, and I – he was my first alpha in the NHL. He was my first alpha away from my family, and he didn’t give a shit about me when he left, but you, he  _loves_  you, even if it’s not what you want, he fucking  _loves_  you and he cares enough about you to stay in contact with you and he let you around his family because he  _trusts_  you – what the fuck do you have to complain about?”

Giroux’s expression was stunned, jaw dropped and mouth wide, and now that Drew had said his piece, his righteous anger was starting to slip away as guilt filtered in.

“I didn’t…” Giroux trailed off, only to swallow and start again. “I didn’t know. About – about you. I knew you were pack, but – I didn’t know that you were close.”

“I was his cub, once,” Drew elaborated with a chagrined look. “Or at least, I thought I was. But he didn’t want me once he left. You – he’s two teams removed and he still wants you. You’re special to him.”

“You’re special to me.” Giroux spoke as if in a daze, like the words were automatic and reflexive, but even as he colored and realized what he’d said, he refused to take it back, instead adding, “I don’t care what Danny or anyone else thinks, or about the past, but I can smell you and you smell fucking  _gorgeous_ , like vanilla and snow and metal and home and  _mine_  and I want you so badly.”

Drew blinked in consternation at the change in topic, once, twice.

“You smell like butter and processed cheese.”

“…what.”

“Like…like…oh, Christ, you’re the one with the grilled cheese thing, aren’t you.”

“It’s not a  _thing-_ ”

“Look, man, I’m just glad my soulmate isn’t a fucking concessions booth in Philadelphia, okay? You smell like a goddamn  _grilled cheese sandwich_ , I’m allowed to call it a  _thing_  when it makes up your entire scent.”

Giroux fell quiet for a moment, their animosity temporarily waylaid.

“But, like, a sexy grilled cheese sandwich? …shut the fuck up, this is important!”

It figured that Drew’s concessions stand nightmares would be replaced with a living, breathing sexy grilled cheese sandwich.

~~~

Trying to coax Drew into a conversation about them being actual real life soulmates with actual real life adult soulmate things to discuss was like pulling more teeth than Claude had left. Drew oscillated between intense anger and a general sense of disbelief, but he allowed Claude to make his case and he didn’t seem to mind the idea of being mated to Claude in a very ephemeral sense where they didn’t address the issue at all.

Drew was obviously preoccupied with his pack – and God, Claude only knew the bare minimum about that clusterfuck and he wasn’t sure effectively marrying into that would be such a hot idea – but also had some intense hang-ups about Danny, and the more he revealed about them the more Claude wanted to fly out to Colorado and wring Danny’s neck for being so careless as to leave his poor Drew like that, thinking of himself that way, feeling that way. His wolf was posturing in his chest now, asserting that it would protect Drew, would never hurt Drew that way.

(Claude had to remind himself that he, like Drew, was avoiding taking leadership of his own pack, and that letting his wolf assert a claiming dominance over Drew out of a primal effort to scare off anyone who might hurt him –  _Danny_  – wouldn’t do either of them any good when Drew had a pack of his own to lead and couldn’t defer to an alpha, especially not one in another pack. Even if that alpha was his mate, and God, did he love thinking that.)

He’d convinced Drew in between more quips about his own scent and his relationship with Danny to take him back to his house. Luckily there were no Sabres lurking around when they arrived, and none appeared when Claude hustled them through the door and then tucked his face into the juncture of Drew’s neck and shoulder.

“What…what are you doing?” Drew asked, frozen to a stutter in the middle of another tirade about Claude using peppermint oil to hide for so many years.

“Sniffing,” Claude replied easily, settling in against the warm skin of Drew’s neck, enjoying how Drew didn’t push him away and instead held Claude’s body close to his own. He was fighting Claude every step of the way, and yet coming along docilely at the same time. “You smell like you’re  _mine_ ,” he purred into Drew’s neck, smiling at the vibrations he knew Drew had to feel.

"You still smell like fake cheese and butter,” Drew chirped, but his voice was shaking and distracted.

Good.

“And you smell  _hot_ ,” Claude returned, finally setting his lips on Drew’s neck and pressing sloppy kisses to all of the skin he could find, only occasionally nipping with his teeth to keep Drew from getting too relaxed. He wanted Drew hot and bothered just like him.

He bit down on Drew’s neck, lightly, teasing and testing his ground. When Drew didn’t pull away or make a sound or movement of protest, Claude amped it up a notch and pressed his teeth more firmly against Drew’s neck.

"Wh-what…what are you doing?” Drew stuttered again.

Claude tried not to smile too smugly.

“ _Well_ , we  _are_  soulmates, after all, and soulmates usually mate within the first twenty-four hours after meeting each other, so you see, we’re way behind on the schedule. Also, the sex. I take full responsibility for cheating you out of some really amazing sex these last few years, and I apologize.”

Drew looked like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to make an indignant comment or just stare in disbelief, and he ended up doing the latter. “Are you seriously asking me to mate right now?”

“Is it working?”

~~~

Claude’s teeth worried gently at the skin of his neck, and between that and the way Drew was surrounded in an overwhelming scent of buttery cheese with just a hint of unexpected maple, a scent that should have been disgusting and instead felt increasingly like comfort, like  _want_ , he was finding it hard to keep himself from having the primal reaction that wanted to burst forth, to hand his control over to Claude and arch his neck and let him bite down, to mark them as soulmates and then to do the same to Claude so everyone would know that grilled-cheese-and-maple belonged to Drew, no matter where Claude went.

The other part of him asked what the hell he thought he was doing, thinking of bonding with someone he had professed to hate less than twenty-four hours ago, but that part of him was swiftly dying as Claude pressed him back against his bed and with barely a conscious thought Drew groaned and writhed, twisting his neck to give Claude better access, a wider expanse to choose from, and if Claude’s responding moan meant anything, he appreciated the gift for what it was.

“You won’t regret it,” he whispered into the sensitive skin below Drew’s ear, making him shiver when everything was suddenly too warm and too overwhelming, “I’m going to make up for everything and I’m going to take care of you, because you’re mine,  _mon cher_ ,  _mon vanille_ , and I take care of what’s mine.”

And then his teeth dug into the meat of where Drew’s shoulder met his neck, and a light exploded behind Drew’s eyes and it was all he could do to hold on for dear life.

He barely remembered what he did next, shakily rolling them over so he could run his hands over Claude’s bare chest (when had they taken their shirts off?), warm and flushed and his scent tinged with something spicy and heady that made it hard to think straight, made it impossible to think at all as Drew pressed biting kisses along his chest, teasing over his nipples and decorating his shoulders with little nips and bruises before setting his mouth against a place on the side of Claude’s neck that his brain instinctually recognized as  _yesperfectminethisyes_ , and it turned out he didn’t need any thoughts anyway as his body knew exactly what to do, biting down hard enough to break the skin, to draw blood and a loud moan from Claude and to feel that light dance behind his eyes again, bright and warm and right and full of  _love_  and  _Claude_  and  _yes_  and  _mine_ and  _more_ , and he didn’t need any upper cognitive functioning for the haze of biting and moaning and claiming and  _mine_ that followed.

When Drew finally came back to himself, waking up hours later to find Claude wrapped firmly around him, his chest half-blanketing Drew’s own and his nose pressed behind Drew’s ear, his first thought wasn’t about what a colossal fuckup this could all turn out to be, or about how he’d been impulsive and negligent and what had he been  _thinking_ , did he even think at all, or about how Claude was going to get in trouble with his team for missing curfew, or about how they were on different teams, how could they ever make this work, or about how he had a  _pack_  to tend to, a pack that desperately needed guidance and support and could they handle this kind of stress, this kind of upset?

No, Drew didn’t think about any of that.

His very first thought was that he was waking up with the scent of grilled cheese surrounding him, and that it actually did smell pretty damn sexy.


	6. Sabres: Jhonas Post-Game II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original notes: "So, uh, for anyone who saw Jhonas’s post-game interview Thursday night (the one the Sabres appear to be avoiding posting online), it was…pretty rough, to say the least. I started writing this right after it. Some things are paraphrased and others are direct quotes."
> 
> 11/1/14

“We can’t give up goals like that,” Jhonas repeated again, “We can’t give up goals like that in overtime, and that’s why we have two wins right now.”

_I can’t give up goals like that_ , he said without words. _That’s why I’m not getting played. That’s why I’m losing the starting position. That’s why we’re losing._

He didn’t have to use any of those words for them to be audible in every one of his responses. His entire interview was painful to listen to, sighing, monotone, having to tell a reporter that no, he wouldn’t answer a question about if he knew why he’d only played in one game on their western road trip. They all knew the answer. The reporters just wanted to hear him say it. They wanted to hear him say that it was because he was a failure, because he let his team get scored on, because he was ruining his one chance after all of these years and he would never get to be the starter.

Jhonas didn’t get to hear the television hosts discussing how stellar they’d thought his goaltending had been. He didn’t hear them talking about which saves had been their favorites, how difficult those goals he’d let in would have been to save, how this loss was a team effort and how the loss was always unfairly hard on the goaltenders.

What he did hear was the media scrum surrounding Ted after the game. What he heard was the same nosy reporter eagerly spewing, “Jhonas said he was really angry that he didn’t get to play on the western road trip.”

He hadn’t said that at all. It obviously wasn’t what he’d wanted and he may have been upset about it and he’d said as much but he’d been diplomatic, he wasn’t talking about it, they were putting words in his mouth-

“Well he should be, guys who don’t play should be angry,” Ted replied automatically, like it was obvious, immediate, didn’t even necessitate consideration.

_Guys who don’t play_. That was the category Jhonas was in now, the category he was placing himself in. He knew how badly the fans wanted him to win, how they wanted him to take over the starting position. He was familiar, the natural successor to their favored leader. They knew he’d put in his time as a backup; he’d slowly earned their hearts.

And now he was throwing that away, goal after goal, while Neuvirth looked like a better and better alternative.

It didn’t matter that they had the same number of wins. Jhonas had let his win get to a shootout; Neuvy hadn’t. Jhonas had six losses; Neuvy had three. Jhonas had been given more than enough opportunities to prove himself as a starter and he was failing to do so; Neuvy was the new kid in town, the one from whom nobody knew what to expect. The one that the narrative presented as the contender for the starter position while Jhonas, Buffalo’s longtime second, proved why he didn’t deserve it.

Jhonas was a guy who didn’t play, and every time he did he reaffirmed why he shouldn’t.

He didn’t want to be around the pack tonight.

(Sometimes, in his more self-pitying moments, he thought that he didn’t want to be in a pack at all. He didn’t want people always tracking him down, surrounding him, lying and trying to convince him that they didn’t literally lose because he let in more goals than the other guy. He didn’t want to be forcefully placated and told false platitudes. He had failed, and this was his penance. He had to live with his failure, and face it and embrace it and do better next time or die trying. There was no room for comfort he didn’t deserve.)

Nobody told the pack that, because they still tried their damnedest to smother him into submission again. First it was at the rink, trying to get him to hold still while he sped through his post-game routine, trying to catch him before he inevitably escaped, to make him come join them at Drew’s house for a post-loss cuddle pile. Then it was texting and calling him constantly after he finally slipped out of the building, asking him where he was going, was he going to Drew’s house, was he going home, did he want someone to come pick him up to take him to Drew’s house (why the hell would he have gone home if that’s what he wanted?), did he want to  _talk about it_?

Jhonas turned off his phone, threw it on the couch and went to his room, firmly closing the door behind him. He was barely out of his suit before he collapsed into bed, pulling the covers up tight around his neck and staring futilely with unseeing eyes at the total blackness of the room around him.

All was quiet save for his own soft breathing. He was completely and utterly alone.

Good.

His missed saves and the faces of those he’d disappointed played out in the shadows in front of him and followed him into his dreams.

Jhonas woke up with an arm around his waist, a warm line of heat down his front and gentle exhalations ruffling his hair.

He distinctly remembered going to bed alone. Self-flagellation was better in solitude.

“The hell are you doing here?” he grumbled, making sure his annoyance was audible as he made to push away. It was still dark through his curtains, not yet morning.

Mike’s arm tightened and pulled him in closer.

“Sleeping,” he sighed with a lazy smile Jhonas had to crane his head back to see. “So are you.”

“I didn’t ask for this,” Jhonas reiterated, trying to express his irritation, to start a fight, as if that had ever worked on Mike in the past. (Mike was best friends with Otter. He was immune to irritation.)

“You didn’t,” Mike agreed readily. “Actually, you refused to answer anybody’s texts or calls and you didn’t show up at Drew’s with the rest of the pack and I personally started to feel a little rejected, so it was up to me to divine what it was that you wanted and I assumed that not saying anything and going home to sleep in your own bed alone meant that you wanted me to come join you and were just too shy to ask. That’s okay, you don’t have to say it out loud for me to understand.”

Mike, it had to be remembered, was also best friends with Otter because he could be exceedingly obnoxious when he wanted to be.

“Or maybe,” Jhonas responded in clipped, concise syllables, “I wanted to be alone.”

He was jostled as Mike moved to prop himself up on his elbow, head on his hand so he could smirk easily down at Jhonas. He was, Jhonas realized idly, shirtless.

Of course.

“Maybe I didn’t want you to be alone. Maybe being alone after a game is a very bad idea and you  _know_  that, because maybe you have a known tendency to blame yourself for games that the rest of us lost.”

Jhonas’s scoff was difficult to suppress. “Which one of us gets  _credited_  with a loss? Which one of us is fighting for his position? It’s not you. You don’t have to worry about that.”

Mike’s face was impossible to read, which was never a good thing. As a rule, off the ice Mike was fairly easygoing and hard to ruffle (on the ice was, of course, an extremely different story). When he got like this, when he wouldn’t let someone see what he was thinking…Jhonas didn’t like it.

“That’s true,” Mike said slowly. His slow, cautious tone and neutral expression showed that he was choosing his words carefully. “You’re the one fighting to be starter, and I wouldn’t know what that’s like.”

The concession surprised Jhonas into silence.

“On the upside, you’re assured a spot on the team.”

The apparent change in subject then startled Jhonas back into the conversation.

“If I keep screwing this up I won’t even get to  _play_. How is that a spot on the team?”

Mike’s expression was all too reasonable for his liking.

“Every team needs a backup; even if you didn’t get to be starter, or if you had to split it fifty-fifty, at least you’d still be on the team. Or if they traded you, someone would undoubtedly want you. You’re a silver medalist Olympian, you got your country gold at Worlds – you’d be in demand. Someone would definitely want you.”

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

Mike shrugged and stroked a hand over Jhonas’s shoulder, which undoubtedly meant that he was nowhere near as innocent as he was trying to seem.

“I’m saying that your NHL career is pretty assured, no matter the worst-case scenario. If things go bad, they’re still amazing. For the rest of us – well, you know what kind of team we’re on. We aren’t graded the same as goalies. Goalies can be on the worst team in the league but still be stars – hell, look at Millsey. But the rest of us…let me put it this way.” He readjusted so he was balanced further on his arm.

“If, when my contract runs out, Buffalo decides not to re-sign me…well, there’s no promise that I’d get any offers.”

“They’re going to re-sign you,” Jhonas interrupted, his tone maybe a little more severe than he’d intended. He didn’t know what Mike was going for here, but he didn’t like it, didn’t like the way his words made his heart twist deep in his chest.

“Maybe,” Mike said with another shrug and a smile Jhonas didn’t believe at all. “But if they don’t, I mean, you can ask my agent, teams don’t ask about me. I’m one of those guys that isn’t just on this team because I love it – I’m here because I  _need_  to be here, because I couldn’t go anywhere else if I wanted to – and no, before you get upset, I don’t want to and you  _know_  that. So when we lose and get worse, and the team talks about changing up the roster, making cuts…well, I can’t help but wonder if I’m going to be next. If I’m going to be traded as collateral to someone who will send me down or let me go at the end of the season, if I’m going to be bought out, if I’m going to be put on waivers…they’re all possibilities. I block shots, sure, but a lot of guys can do that. I’m not a standout by any means. I need to do well for this team to prove that I’m worth keeping around.”

“Nobody is talking about getting rid of you!” Jhonas fumed, pushing himself up so he was sitting upright next to where Mike lounged. “God, why would you – stop being so  _morbid_! The team sucks, we get it, we all know it, but nobody’s – the team  _loves_  you, you were the unsung hero at the end of the lockout season, we all know how much you do for this team, on and off the ice.  _Nobody_  here would think management wants to get rid of you.”

Mike looked up at him through the dull gloom of Jhonas’s darkened bedroom, brown eyes partially hidden by his lashes, his face slack and mouth parted in a look that was much too innocent, much too vulnerable. “That doesn’t mean I don’t think about it. That doesn’t mean it’s not a distinct possibility, especially if we keep getting worse.”

“Why are you  _saying_  this?”

Did he  _want_  to make Jhonas feel even worse?

He shrugged again, and it would have been infuriating if his face wasn’t so calm and matter-of-fact. If he wasn’t looking up at Jhonas with wide, honest eyes. (Jhonas was always,  _always_  a sucker for Mike’s eyes.)

“I just want you to know that you aren’t the only one who has a lot riding on these games. There are kids fighting to stay in the big leagues, guys fighting for their last professional contracts, guys who are old enough that this is their only chance to play in the NHL, and you and Neuvy both want to prove that you can be a winning starter. Everyone has a reason to want to win. Everyone has something riding on this. And that means that when we lose, it affects all of us,  _and_  it’s all of our faults. Losing is a team effort, always. We’ve all got something we’re fighting for. You’re never alone.”

It was moments like this that made Jhonas sit back and marvel at this side of Mike that so many people never would have thought to exist when they saw him taking penalties and getting into fights every night. And he, of all people, was the one who got to see it the most.

“Are you getting philosophical on me now?” Jhonas quipped, his voice tight and his chirp weak. Mike smiled, smug in a way that meant he knew he was winning, and slid a hand up to Jhonas’s shoulder, tugging him back into a laying position so they were face to face.

“No,” he said with another easy shrug, now that their faces were scant inches apart. “I just know that you need that repeated to you about once a week until you actually get it through your head. You’re good enough to be a starter; we all know it. You’re the last person anybody is blaming for our losses. There are twenty-one of us losing those games in front of you; don’t you think we’re allowed to shoulder some of the burden too?”

“I’m the one who lets the goals in-”

“And we’re the ones who let the other team get that close,” Mike interjected. This was an argument that Jhonas had rehashed multiple times with multiple people, both packmates and human teammates. “And we all have to face our actions and fix up our game if we want to improve. But in the mean time, none of that means that you should be holing up and hiding so you can get down on yourself while you have a pack that loves you and misses you.”

“They don’t miss me,” Jhonas grumbled petulantly, ducking his face so his words were mostly spoken into the smooth skin of Mike’s chest. Mike snorted and ran a gentle hand over the back of his head.

“You know they do. And,” he added, catching Jhonas’s chin and tilting it up until their eyes met in the blue darkness of Jhonas’s bedroom, “You know I do, too.”

Struggling for a witty response, Jhonas mumbled, “Yeah, but you know you’re different.”

The smile that spread across Mike’s face, bright and wide and crooked and fascinating, made something jump in the pit of Jhonas’s stomach. He buried his face against Mike’s shoulder as Mike slumped back down against the pillows, hauling Jhonas closer and stroking a hand over his hair again, over his neck.

“Yeah,” Mike sighed against his hair, his smug smile audible and his words rumbling through his chest under Jhonas’s cheek, “I am.”

Jhonas tucked his own smile into the crook of Mike’s neck and sealed it with the tiniest of kisses.

God, he loved his stupid pack.


	7. Sabres/Blue Jackets: Luke Adam Trade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written after Luke Adam was traded from the Sabres to the Blue Jackets.
> 
> 12/17/14

It happened while the team was in Winnipeg. Most of them heard about it on the internet before anybody thought to tell the team.

Drew got the call almost right after he read the news, freshly waking up from his pre-game nap, unwrapping himself from the pile of rookies that had formed around him while he slept (and oh, it had been a while since he’d had all four of his European cubs together at once; he’d nearly forgotten how clingy they got together) and chugging a water bottle while reading the articles his phone had alerted him to with growing dread when it began vibrating.

He guessed who it was before the screen switched to show him who was calling, and for once, he was hesitant to take the call. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say.

There had been plenty of roster moves and reassignments for the pack since Drew was unceremoniously chosen as the de facto alpha, but it was the first time one of his cubs had been traded.

For some reason it had never occurred to him that his oldest pup, the one that nobody talked about, the one who was supposed to be safely ensconced in Rochester, would be the first one to go.

And he didn’t want Luke to go. Drew didn’t want any of his pups to go, felt viscerally sick at the very idea, but something about the idea of losing Luke made him want to violently protest, to refuse the idea and track down Murray and demand that he reverse this, that he fix it, because Luke – Luke was Ryan and Jason’s cub. He was their cub, their bright, smiley, cuddly and unrepentantly needy cub that they had left for Drew to take care of. He wasn’t Drew’s to lose. And so he couldn’t be traded, couldn’t leave, not while he’d spent the season in Rochester, had barely been able to spend time with the real pack except for stolen puppy piles when the two teams’ schedules happened to coincide in off days, not when he’d been working so hard to get a call-up so he could finally have a shot at sticking with the team, and not when he was one of the final remnants of a team that had felt like a team and a pack that had felt like a pack.

Losing Luke was losing another of the fast-disappearing pieces of the pack that had felt like home, and something in Drew felt like maybe if he didn’t answer the phone, it wouldn’t be true.

His phone continued vibrating, probably getting ready to shift to voicemail, when Drew finally clenched his eyes shut, swiped his thumb over the answer button and brought the phone to his ear.

“Hello?”

The line was silent for a moment, long enough that Drew would have thought the call was dead if he couldn’t hear the faint sound of shaky, watery breathing on the other end.

“Drew?”

“Yeah Lukey?”

It took everything he had to swallow the lump rising in his throat and try to sound calm for the pup. His pup. It was one last courtesy that he could provide.

The sound that came next was closer to a sob than a laugh, a bursting exhalation littered with so much pain.

“I got traded, Drew.”

“I saw, Lukey.”

He knew he should say more. Tell Luke how it would be okay, how it was a good opportunity, how Columbus would take care of him.

How Drew wouldn’t forget about him as alphas were so wont to do when a cub was deemed no longer theirs.

“Oh.”

Luke sounded like he wasn’t quite sure how to answer that, like the wind was taken out of his sails when his news was no longer in fact news.

“Are you…I guess I just, I wanted to, um, say goodbye, I guess, I mean, because-”

He stopped talking, words frozen like he couldn’t force them off of his tongue before there was another bitten back sob, harsh and loud to Drew in the quiet of the sleeping room around him.

“Drew,” Luke whispered, words wrapped in a moan that felt like being punched with a fist of jagged nails. “Drew, I don’t want to go.”

And this was the perfect metaphor for the kind of alpha that Drew was, inept and trapped thousands of miles away in another  _country_  while the cub he hadn’t paid nearly enough attention to shuddered and sobbed alone after being told to leave the life he’d grown so used to over the years, to leave the pack he’d called his own even after only ever being able to join it in fleeting bursts. Luke was hurting worse than he likely ever had before and Drew couldn’t do a damn thing to comfort him.

He bit his lip and looked away, like that could hide him from the tears in Luke’s voice.

“I’m so sorry, buddy. I – I didn’t know they would do this, I didn’t think – God, I’m so sorry.”

He kept his voice hushed, partially to keep from waking the cubs on his bed and partially for his own sake, because if he spoke louder his voice might crack and he might just start crying himself.

“I just want to be with the pack,” Luke continued, making sure that the ache set in deeply in Drew’s heart in the process. “I just – I wanted to be a Sabre and, and fix the team with you guys, and stay with the pack and stay in Buffalo and everything would be good and, and  _I don’t want to go_.”

And this is where Jason would have stepped in and defused the situation, combining the comfort of steady authority with tender words and understanding. This is where Ryan would have made sure Luke knew he was loved, and that he would continue to be loved even in another organization, and that his new team, his new pack, would love him just as much.

And this is where Drew stood silent, hand against his mouth as if to hold back words that were too loud, too inept, too broken and wrong, hunched over his phone in a blank hotel room with a pile of cubs sleeping softly less than ten feet away while his oldest pup, no longer his, sobbed brokenly down from another country and waited for answers that Drew wasn’t sure how to provide.

“We don’t want you to go either, buddy,” Drew finally said, unsure if his words would do more harm than good, especially when they elicited a high-pitched whine from Luke. “But things will be okay!” he continued quickly, like if he talked fast enough he could maybe say something useful. “I’ve heard really good things about Columbus’s pack, Lukey, great things. They say – the rumors are that they’re the best, okay? That Bobrovsky is the best alpha, that his pack is happy and healthy and that he cares about his guys in the AHL too. You know what Marcus has heard from Nick about the pack, they’re – they’re really good, they’ll be good to you. They’ll take care of you.”

It felt like maybe somewhere in his rambling he’d said something helpful, something with meaning and feeling and substance, until Luke’s watery voice whispered, croaking, miserable and confused, “But you’re the best alpha.”

Normally that sort of comment would have made Drew wince in ill-concealed shame at its untruthfulness, at how it so innocently pointed out to him his glaring faults. Now it slammed into his heart with the subtlety of a steam engine on icy tracks, breathtaking in the sudden and sharp bruising, in the ways it reminded Drew of how much trust his pack placed in him and how atrociously he let them down.

“I’m not,” he choked, shaking his head futilely. The words clawed at his throat, desperate to make themselves known so that Luke would understand this one important thing, that Drew was not the best alpha or even a good alpha, and that Luke had had better alphas and was leaving now to go to one of the best. “I’m – Ryan and Jason were so much better, you know that, and Bobrovsky – you’ve seen what he’s like with Nick, and Marcus says Nick can never stop talking about how good he is, kind and fair and stable and, and he  _loves_  hugging his pack, Lukey, you’re gonna love it, Nick says he’s so good with his cubs and he takes care of everyone. He’s going to be such a good alpha for you, he’s done this before, he can give you so much more than I can.”

As per usual this (truthful) answer was the expressly wrong thing to say, because if anything it actually increased Luke’s crying. “He’s not, you’re my alpha, I don’t want – I don’t want a new alpha, don’t make me get a new alpha, I want to stay with  _you, please_ -”

Drew never professed to be a strong wolf. If asked, he would say that he was not at all a good candidate for alpha because he lacked the sort of inner strength one needed to call themselves a good leader, the sense of calm during disaster that made people want to follow him. Drew was the sort of person you followed because they were the oldest and had the presumed air of therefore knowing the most, having the most experience and being the least awful choice of the bunch. Nobody would choose him for his calm and poise.

That was why, when it finally got to be too much, hearing his cub, the cub he’d helped raise for so long, the one he’d never thought it was possible to lose, desperately begging to be allowed to stay, he’d be so good, he promised, and knowing that there was literally absolutely nothing he could do about it – well, it wasn’t in Drew’s nature to be stoic, so it wasn’t too surprising that he started crying himself.

“I’m so sorry, Luke,” he whispered, “I’m so goddamn fucking sorry.”

And then they both cried, out of words but full of tears to express their grievances, their pain, their shared heartbreak. Luke did what any cub would do and turned to his alpha (or the closest thing to it) for comfort, for guidance – to fix things and make them right. And this was a situation that no alpha could fix, and Drew – Drew couldn’t even comfort Luke the right way.

He didn’t know how long it was that he stood there, forehead against a wall, eyes clenched shut tight as tears continued slipping freely through, listening to the shuddering whimpers of a pup desperately begging for something that Drew couldn’t give. He jolted when he felt movement at his back, heard first a soft, surprised whine and then felt warm arms move around his waist, a face nuzzling against the thin cotton covering his back.

His initial reaction would have been that this was Nikita, arguably the handsiest of the cubs present, but the height was wrong. The scent gave him away.

“Go back to sleep, Misha,” Drew whispered, holding the phone away from his ear and patting the hands clasped around his middle. This was probably the right time for the team to be waking up, actually, but Drew didn’t want to deal with even more distraught cubs right now, and that’s what would be happening once they found out about the trade.

“You’re crying,” Mikhail argued, his voice nearly offended – at the concept of Drew crying or the idea that Drew would tell him to leave when he was upset, he didn’t know.

“I’ll be fine. You should-”

“Should stay here and make sure my alpha is okay.”

Drew didn’t have to be able to see his face to know that his expression was hard; his voice brokered no argument.

Luke’s sniffling had paused over the phone, probably hearing the voices on the other end. “Drew?” he asked. “Is that Grigs?”

“Yeah,” Drew sighed, even as he felt Mikhail peeking over his shoulder to peer with interest at the phone.

“What happen?” Mikhail whispered.

That wasn’t news that Drew particularly cared to impart, but seeing as he was the only option, he chewed his lip for a moment before saying softly, “Luke was traded to Columbus.”

And because Grigo had seen fit to wrap himself around Drew’s back, Drew could feel the exact moment that he tensed up, that he held his breath, that his eyes must have gone wide. And because Drew knew his pups, he knew what was going through Mikhail’s head: that he had received a callup, his first of the year, the same callup that Luke had been waiting for, and instead Luke, who had been a part of the organization for years, who had been waiting for the callup that would be the time he could prove himself, the time he could stay up – Luke, who was part of the old pack, who had more of a place as a pack member than so many of those who were there now, who had had better alphas and a stronger, happier pack, who had been through so much loss with them already – while Mikhail got the callup he’d been waiting for, Luke got the trade that fulfilled his worst nightmares: he’d waited and waited and done his best, and the team he’d wanted to please rewarded him with a trade, and the pack he’d worried so much about becoming irrelevant to was no longer his pack at all.

And because Drew knew Mikhail, he knew that he would be repeating all of those thoughts in his head over and over, torn between joy for himself and seething guilt and self-loathing for taking that opportunity from Luke, even if in their GM’s eyes that had never been Luke’s opportunity to begin with.

And he was set to intervene this time, to help at least the pup he could hold, the one he could physically comfort if not with clever and soothing words, when Mikhail held out his hand and said in a firm voice, “Give me phone.”

Drew shifted the phone away reflexively.

“What? No. Misha, he’s upset, this probably isn’t the best time-”

“Now is perfect time,” Mikhail countered, sliding around to Drew’s front so he could experience the full-on matter-of-fact expression that the pup was sporting. Drew’s face must have expressed his disbelief and hesitation, because Mikhail’s own face softened and he held out his hand again imploringly, saying, “Luker and Mark and me, we talk a lot this year about being pack and being Sabres but feeling…left out, and what pack means, and what alphas mean and how we feel about changes…think I know what to say.”

His eyes never wavered from Drew’s face, wanting Drew to feel the truth in his words. And in reality, it wasn’t like he had any better ideas himself.

“Okay,” he sighed, “Just…let me know if you need help.”

He turned back to the phone, saying, “Luke, Grigs wants to talk to you, okay?” He waited for an affirmation before passing the phone off. Mikhail beamed at him, squeezed his forearm and then disappeared into the bathroom speaking quietly into the phone, which was not something Drew had expected as the door closed and the fan flipped on and he suddenly found himself alone with tears still drying on his cheeks as some more groggy cubs began shifting around on the bed behind him.

For lack of anything better to do he wiped at his eyes and went back to the bed, sitting on the edge and looking down at his cubs. The movement made Rasmus blink up at him blearily before smiling and throwing an arm around his waist, moving closer to nuzzle his nose against Drew’s hip. Drew sighed and ran his fingers through Rasmus’s soft blond hair.

“Is everything okay?”

The sudden voice made Drew jump, if only because it wasn’t coming from the blond at his hip. Zemgus, instead, was peering over Nikita’s shoulder, still ensconced firmly in a hug. Drew sighed again and ran his spare hand through his own hair.

“Not really. I guess…” He sighed again. “Luke’s been traded to Columbus.”

He could tell that Rasmus was paying attention by the way his fingers suddenly clenched against Drew’s side, his face pressing tighter against his hip. Zemgus, for his part, looked stunned.

“Is he…” He trailed off, never finishing the question. Drew didn’t know what it was, but Zemgus likely didn’t know either.

His shrug was with a casual attitude that was obviously false. “He’s taking it as well as could be expected. He’s upset. Grigs is talking to him.”

Zemgus nodded, obviously more for a lack of something to do but feeling a need to respond. A glance at Rasmus showed that his eyes were clenched tightly shut, and his breathing was harsh and warm against Drew’s shirt. Drew twisted his fingers in his hair just to remind the pup that he was there.

“Is he…” Zemgus began again, losing his words just as he had before. This time, however, he pushed through it, finishing, “Is he going to be okay?”

And that really wasn’t something that Drew could answer. Right now, facing a situation he’d hoped to somehow avoid forever (which was dumb and narrow-sighted of him on a team in the midst of a rebuild), knowing that his cub that meant so much to him, to his own sense of pack and comfort was leaving, it felt like nothing would be okay.

But he knew that that wasn’t true. Columbus would give Luke a new start, a new AHL team to play with, a new place to prove himself. They might call him up, give him that real chance he hadn’t gotten in a couple of years. Drew knew they had a good pack, knew that they would look after him even in Springfield. Luke would be unhappy at first, with the change, with the loss, but once he got acclimated, Drew was fairly confident that Luke could find a home there. He could be happy. It just wouldn’t be so easy for him to see that right now, when everything felt like hurt and loneliness.

And that was what led him to the confidence to say, “Yeah, Z. It’s going to be tough, but so’s Luke. He’s gonna be okay.”

And somehow, for once, those were actually the right words, because Rasmus’s grip squeezed tight and then relaxed, his exhale sharp with relief, and Zemgus bit his lip and then nodded, eyes wide and open and trusting and vulnerable in the way they never were, in the way of a cub who would believe it when his alpha said that things were going to be okay because nobody was more trustworthy than his alpha.

And that was what Drew had to impart to Luke, that he was going to be okay, that things were hard and were going to feel impossible but they would still love him, and his new pack would love him too, and Springfield and Columbus and Bobrovsky were going to take care of him and make him a home with them.

It was fitting that that was when the door to the bathroom opened and Mikhail exited, still speaking in a hushed voice as he approached the bed. “You too, Lukey,” he said as he plopped himself with a bounce onto the bed between Drew and the headboard, jostling a grumbling Rasmus. Drew glanced at him and raised an eyebrow, but Mikhail only smiled and said, “Here’s Drew,” before offering him the phone. Drew took it carefully as Grigs flopped onto his back across everyone’s pillows, reaching a hand out to ruffle Nikita’s hair until he woke up and said hand was confiscated and tucked against Nikita’s chest along with Zemgus.

“Drew?” Luke asked, voice tinny with the phone so far from his face. Drew jolted back to attention and put it to his ear.

“Hey, buddy. Are you…did you…”

“I’m…a little better,” he said, and it didn’t sound like a lie, not with his voice a little less watery, a little more confident. “We talked about, uh…stuff. With alphas. And how – well, like, you know how everyone’s – gone, like Gerbs and Jochen and Roysy and Goose?” He carefully wasn’t mentioning Ryan or Jason, but Drew didn’t comment and instead nodded before realizing his error and saying aloud, “Yeah, I know.”

“Well, they’re all gone, but we still miss them. Because they were our pack, and even if they have new packs now, a bit of them will still always be ours, because they were ours first and we love them.”

“Yeah, bud,” Drew said, feeling that lump starting to form in his throat again, “Yeah, we really do.”

Luke’s voice grew in confidence with the affirmation, still wavering, but stronger. “So me and Grigo were saying, maybe when you leave your pack, it’s not like – like you really  _leave_ , not if you don’t want to. Like, you’re gone, but it’s not – you aren’t losing a pack, you’re just gaining a new one. The old pack still, still cares about you. Because we still care about our old packmembers, and like, the guys we knew in juniors, and our family packs, even if we don’t call them  _our_  pack anymore, because, like, once they’re yours, they’re yours for life, y'know?”

And leave it to those two to come up with something like that, something so innocently presented and yet beautiful and so, so warm.

“Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.” Drew scratched his fingers gently against Rasmus’s scalp.

“So then, I…Grigs mentioned alphas, and how, how it feels kind of scary because when you get a new alpha, the old one doesn’t treat you the same, because – because when Pommer and Mills left, they didn’t act the same, they don’t – they don’t come see us like other guys do, they don’t check up on us like other packmates. And I was really worried that – that maybe you might do that too, and not want to be, to care about me because we weren’t in the same pack anymore, but Grigs said that it was different for alphas, because they have to learn to love you differently when you can’t – when you’re somebody else’s cub. He said that alphas always want to see you as  _their_  cub and it’s hard to remember that you’re someone else’s, so sometimes they try too hard and end up ignoring their old packs because they think they’re being respectful, or they show their love differently so the new alpha doesn’t get upset. But he said that – that you were a good alpha and you loved us all a lot, and that you weren’t really good at pack relations so you’d probably be too busy hugging me to remember that you were supposed to be respectful or some shit like that, and that, that you’d make sure that my new alpha took care of me too, because you’re always checking up on all of us and you worry about the old guys and you always do your best to look out for everybody, no matter where they are. And he said that that’s what makes you a good alpha, because you never stop caring, and you never let anyone feel like you don’t want them.”

It was the confidence in Luke’s voice that got to him, the sheer, open honesty and belief in his own words. Luke was so sure of himself, that what he was saying was irreversible fact, and Grigo of all people, the one nobody had pegged as a leader, the one who was always targeted by the media as not caring enough, who had helped him to that conclusion, to that confidence.

Drew looked over his shoulder at the Russian sprawled like a smiling cat across the pillows of his bed. Mikhail’s smile only widened and he nudged Drew with his knee. The little shit knew exactly why Drew was looking at him.

“That’s all, like…it’s true, right?” Luke was asking.

Staring directly into Mikhail’s eyes, Drew forced himself to swallow past the lump in his throat and said, “Yeah, Lukey, it’s true. I’m not – I’m gonna keep looking out for you and for everyone no matter where you are. You’re my cub, right?”

“Yeah,” Luke breathed, a watery sigh of relief.

“And I take care of my cubs,” Drew continued with a confidence he barely felt, even as the cubs around him all hummed happily in agreement. “And I’m going to make sure Bobrovsky looks after you too, okay? I think – it’s going to be really hard at first, to be in a new pack and on new teams, but I think you’re going to like it after a while. New things are scary, but – they can be good, too. And you’re gonna tear it up out there, kid, just give yourself the chance.”

“You think so?”

And this time Drew’s assurance wasn’t forced. “I know so.”

Luke still wasn’t happy when they finally hung up, but after talking to Mikhail and Drew and with firm instructions to take care of Mark and help him out before he left Rochester (and Drew should have known that as needy as Luke was known to be, telling him to take care of a packmate was the surefire way to calm him down and give him a sense of purpose again), things were better. Not perfect, but better.

“You know,” Grigo said carefully as Drew hung up the phone, “Getting a new alpha was scary, but it was good.”

Drew leveled him a look. “You trying to use my own words against me, Grigorenko?”

“Not against you,” Mikhail hummed. “Sometimes, you just have good ideas.”

“Only sometimes,” Zemgus asserted in agreement, because somehow Drew had forgotten in the last hour or so that his pack was full of obnoxious little shits.

“All of you shut up and get out of my room, you have a game to be getting ready for.” There were communal groans from all four, but with some nudging and prodding there was compliance.

It was as Drew was chivvying them in the general direction of the door and their own rooms that he caught Mikhail by the shoulder and tugged him back into a hug.

“Thank you,” he said against the cub’s neck. “I don’t know where you got all of that from, but thank you. He needed to hear that.”

He could tell from the flush on Misha’s face and the light in his eyes that he was pleased, but the young Russian still shrugged and said, “Is all true, that’s where I got it.”

Drew leaned back and raised an eyebrow, but Mikhail was ready to meet him with the same expression. “You are a good alpha,” he said quietly, “And we trust you, even if you do not trust yourself.”

It was from repeated experience that Drew knew that continuing to argue this particular point usually only resulted in stubborn looks and a pile of wolves trying to cuddle him into submission, so he instead chose to change the subject slightly and ask, “Since when did you get so philosophical?”

Mikhail snorted in laughter and waggled his eyebrows. “We have lots of time to talk in Roch. Ask goalies about meaning of life, they have many answers.”

And before Drew could respond (most likely with something along the lines of “I’m not really sure I want to”), Mikhail was hugging him quickly, kissing his forehead and off down the hallway, catching up to Nikita and immediately prodding at him to get his full attention.

God, but Drew really did have the best cubs.

Speaking of them, he turned and made his way towards the other end of the hallway. The door opened shortly after his knock.

“Hey, I need you to ask your brother to get a phone number for me…”

~~~

Sergei Bobrovsky didn’t really talk to most of the other alphas in the league, mostly because he didn’t really have anything to say to them. He and Claude still talked, but a lot of the other alphas were a little too formal, a little too grim for his liking. Besides, he didn’t appreciate the way some of them treated their packs and wasn’t sure he could keep up the respectful vibe everyone was going for, so he usually decided to forego intra-pack communications and instead just let his pack do its own thing relatively ignored by everyone else, the same as his team.

It therefore stood to reason that the majority of the alphas in the league probably didn’t have any of his contact information, so he wasn’t really expecting a phone call from an unknown area code as he was preparing for their game against Detroit.

“This is Sergei Bobrovsky, right?” an unknown voice asked as soon as he said hello.

“Yes…”

“This is Drew Stafford. From the Buffalo Sabres.”

If Sergei was honest with himself, he rather enjoyed that Stafford tacked on his team like maybe Sergei wouldn’t know who he was.

“I play for the Columbus Blue Jackets,” he replied, just to hear the befuddled pause from Stafford.

“…I know. I’m calling because – okay, look.” Stafford’s tone abruptly changed from vaguely polite and airily beseeching to flat and firm. Sergei could work with that. “You know about the trade today. I’m not sure if you know it because you may not have played him before, but Luke Adam is a wolf. Specifically, he’s my wolf and my cub, and he’s maybe a little bit clingier than most guys his age and he needs to be well-taken care of, and I need to make sure that you’re going to do that.”

“You think I won’t?” Sergei could have gone for offended, but instead chose to stick with a curious tone; Stafford sounded like he was coming from the right place.

“I think you will, but I have to make sure. You’ve got a really good reputation and your beta won’t stop telling his brother how amazing you are, but I have to make sure for myself that you’re going to look after my cub if he’s going to be yours now. I promised him. And myself.”

And that was…different. Sergei had seen his fair share of wolves get traded around the league at one point or another, but he’d never really heard of something like this, an old alpha making sure the new one would take care of the wolf they were exchanging. It was sad, if he thought about it, that this wasn’t commonplace, that alphas were so afraid of overstepping bounds and trampling each other’s toes that they didn’t make sure to put the welfare of their packs first. Everybody should be doing this, he could admit. But it still made him wonder: why Stafford?

“This is important to you,” Sergei began slowly, “Why?”

Stafford was quiet for a long enough time that Sergei wondered if maybe  _he_  had overstepped his bounds when Stafford said in a quiet voice, “Because I wish somebody had done this for me. I had good alphas, but I wish they’d thought to make sure that I would be okay without them.”

There was a vulnerability in his words that Sergei knew was not his to touch, but he still wanted to – his need to comfort sad wolves was nearly impulsive, and you didn’t have to be a genius or know him well to figure out that Drew Stafford just might be a sad wolf.

“I will take good care of your cub,” Sergei said firmly, amending afterwards, “ _Our_  cub. In Springfield or Columbus, I will make sure he is happy.”

It was a promise he felt comfortable making. The one thing of which he could always be sure was that his wolves always felt loved.

It was with a loud sigh that Stafford exhaled and said, “Thank you.”

“It’s no problem. It is nice to know that you care.”

Stafford’s bark of a laugh was a little unexpected. “Yeah, sometimes a little too much.”

“No such thing as too much,” Sergei replied easily, “Can never be too much love for your pack.”

What came next sounded like a grumble about something to do with “teaching philosophy on Team Russia,” but before Sergei could ask Drew to repeat himself he was saying louder, “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Just. Take care of him for me, yeah?”

“I will. You have my word.”

It was, Sergei reflected later, a rather good interaction for his first bout of intra-pack communication with another alpha. Lots of positive sentiments and prosocial behavior.

And even if Claude had been laughing the last time they spoke about the trainwreck that was the Sabres pack, they had to be doing something right if their alpha cared that much.

He would have to tell Claude to give their alpha a better look the next time the Flyers played the Sabres. He might find something there that he’d missed before.


	8. Predators: Derek Roy Trade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written after Derek Roy was traded from the Predators to the Oilers.
> 
> Obliquely references [this video/song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izkjD5qSC6w#t=244), from when Roy was traded from the Sabres to the Stars.
> 
> 12/30/14

It wasn’t like Paul needed Roysy as a fucking security blanket. He’d gone for over two years without Derek (or any of their original pack!) to comfort him or rely on. He’d survived over two years in whatever constituted as Shea Weber’s pack, and he was doing fine on his own, settling into the team and making friends with the humans where he would once sidle up to the wolves. Having Derek around again was just a bonus, a creature comfort. Roysy wasn’t a goddamn  _necessity_.

So he wasn’t quite sure how to explain the sick clenching in his gut at the news of the trade, or the way his heart flicked like a switch into fast-paced jackrabbit thumping, thoughts a congealed mess of  _no no not again_ alone _again don’t go can’t go please no pack need pack_ no _pack alone alone_ alone.

Trades were a part of life in the NHL. Paul had been through one of his own. If he could survive that and come out unscathed (and for the better, really, if he thought about how his old team was faring – and were they really his old team ( _his old pack_ ) when everybody he knew was gone?), he could definitely survive somebody else’s.

Roysy had only been back in his life for a few months, anyway. He was barely used to him again, would get over him easily.

(The lie felt bitter and slimy on his tongue even without trying to say the words aloud.)

But none of that could make him stop feeling like the ground had been pulled out from under him and now he was falling aimlessly again, no pack, no home and nobody to care if he drowned on his own. Nashville may have had a pack for official purposes, but when it came to reality, they were just a group of lone wolves playing on a team together. Paul had been dumb enough to let himself forget that for a few blissful months when an old packmate (littermate, practically) came back and the team turned itself around and everything felt like maybe, just this once, it could be perfect.

And then Roysy had to ruin it all by getting his ass traded  _again_.

Goodbye Derek Roy, indeed.

Paul would make it on his own, he knew. Things weren’t so bad, with Shea distracted by Roman and Seth and the anomaly that was James Neal. Hell, Carter didn’t have any wolves to hang around with and he was happy as a fucking goalie clam. And before Derek had come along, Paul had been just fine with his team, with his friendships there, with his place in the scheme of things.

It really was very Derek Roy of Roysy to screw that up for him by making him think he could have the past back again, if only for a little bit. If only for pretend. Because having Derek there, playing for a team that was surprising everyone with its success – it was like 2006 all over again. It was breathless excitement and fast-paced action and holding onto each other so they didn’t get swept up in how easily this could be like before – how they could do it all over again if they played their cards right. And if they played their cards excellently, they could finish their old business and do what they hadn’t done before – they could make good on the promise of that excellent team and that excellent pack.

Maybe, with the team on the upswing, the pack in Nashville could have fixed itself too.

But Paul would never know, because just as fast as Roysy had come back into his life ( _his pack_ ), he was gone again, and Paul was left alone, bereft and reminding himself that the cold ache in his chest had stopped bothering him two years ago, that he didn’t even remember he was  _supposed_  to have a pack anymore.

And part of that made him viciously hate Derek for reminding him of all of the things he’d thoroughly learned that he could not have, for dangling them over his head and letting him embrace them only to rip it all away after a few short, perfect months. He knew he didn’t truly hate Roysy – he never could, and it wasn’t like Derek had asked for the trade anyway – but filling the gaping hole in his chest with seething hot anger warmed him from the inside more than tears and hopeless nostalgia ever could.

And if he was angry, he would remember to stay away from the idea of a pack, from forming relationships that he couldn’t keep and getting too attached. He would watch himself, check his behavior, and he would stay safe. Anger and isolation were safe.

Paul would be fine. He’d gone through this before. He knew what it was like. He could do it again.

And really, after two years of it, slipping back into the frigid embrace of loneliness that defined the isolation of being a lone wolf felt a little bit like going home. Things were well-worn here, familiar. Comfortable.

 _Oh God, please come back_.


	9. 2014 All-Star Game: Weber/Suter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompted: In honor of Shea and Sutes being drafted to the same All-Star team, a fic please!!!!
> 
> Takes place during the 2014 All-Star Weekend. I also wrote a [non-werewolf version of this](https://swedishgoaliemafia.tumblr.com/post/109575704331/the-completely-human-version-of-webersuter-at-the) which was if I recall much happier.
> 
> 1/24/15

Shea had been okay with the wolves that were drafted to his team. All of them were ones he’d met through Team Canada – ones he trusted to recognize when not to pry into his personal life, ones who would know that pressing about his team (his  _pack_ ) would never go well. No matter what they thought of his decisions, they knew better than to express their opinions.

They knew how to mind their own business. He liked that.

And then Toews (stupid,  _stupid_  fucking Jonathan Toews, who was so painfully human and obliviously ignorant that Shea could strangle him) thought it would be cute to draft Shea’s old defensive partner, because if they played well together before, why wouldn’t they now?

_(Because they talked before, because they played for the same team before, because they trusted each other before, were friends before, lived together before, communicated before, were_ mates _before. Because they used to be in love, and now they weren’t. Because they’d given each other their hearts, until Ryan decided that he didn’t want Shea’s anymore, and threw it away and took his own back and left him alone alone_ alone _with a hole in his soul that no pack could ever fill.)_

Ryan had nodded to Shea as he pulled his new jersey on, maybe done some little gesture close to a wave. Shea smiled because he was supposed to, because diving over the metal barrier separating them and ripping off Ryan’s face with his bare hands was frowned upon in modern society and he was trying to be proud of himself for keeping their non-relationship out of the public eye. He’d so far been successful in refraining from maiming Ryan or anybody in his new  _pack_ , and he’d like to maintain that streak.

And of course Ryan never seemed to have to fight any of those impulses, but then again, Ryan was the one who had made the choice to leave, so he never felt that burning in the scar on his neck, the twisting ache in the empty bond that kept curling yearningly towards the gaping maw of utter nothingness where another soul was supposed to be, the quick heat of primal instincts telling him to remove the interlopers from what was  _his_. He wasn’t constantly at war with his hurt, literally soul-deep and always festering, an empty hole that swallowed and destroyed everything good around it, and his all-consuming anger, rage that had to be kept tightly in check but was always just beneath the surface, near to boiling over and he was just so angry at  _everything_ , at Ryan, at the Predators for letting him go, at his pack for acting like some facsimiles of companionship could ever fix what was irrevocably broken ( _for not being Ryan_ ). Ryan wasn’t the one who was confused why he still felt like he loved someone who had in some ways literally destroyed him, someone who had hurt him in manners that were taboo for a reason that he now understood all too viscerally. Ryan wasn’t the one who was judged for his reactions, for his anger, for his treatment of wolves he wanted nothing to do with ( _he didn’t ask for them, he didn’t ask for any of this_ ), for his hurt, as if there was a limit on mourning a dead piece of your soul.

Ryan was the one who got to leave for a new city, a new team with a new mate to fill in and overflow all the places that may have been left empty and wanting when Ryan had ripped Shea out of himself and thrown him away.  _(Shea didn’t know where that part of him had gone, but he’d never got it back.)_. Ryan got to pick up and start over with love and a smile and that was why he got to be the one to act like everything was okay between them, because it  _was_  okay, for him. He was happy and complete and loved, and whatever lack of a relationship he now had with Shea was just an unlucky consequence. Collateral damage in the quest for happiness.

_(Shea didn’t know how to find happiness anymore, because it felt like maybe that was the part of him that Ryan had taken with him. He was trying, in his own way, with his dogs and his rookie and Roman’s blinding smiles, and on some days it felt like it was working. Maybe humans couldn’t fill the gap in his chest, not completely, not the right way, but they didn’t pull at it the way wolves did, ripping and tugging and_ reminding _, and if he surrounded himself with them it almost felt like he was whole again, like maybe things weren’t so wrong.)_

This weekend was already setting itself up to be an exercise in masochism and it had barely begun.

He responded to Roman’s excited and emoticon-filled texts and told him he was going to have a great time catching up with everybody. Roman responded with a picture of Rod using Seth as a pillow.

Shea’s insides felt a little bit less brittle.

It didn’t last. He knew it wouldn’t, because Ryan was never one to leave things hanging. Shea had been lucky to avoid him for so long already, racing out of the arena after games, magically finding places to be on the nights that he knew the Wild were in town (Ryan may have left his key on the counter when he’d left, but Shea had told himself it was pathetic to find a new house just because of a break-up and Ryan would obviously still know his old address) and using the half-mocking ethnocentrism of the Olympics as a shield. Given Ryan’s characteristic dogged determination and his hatred of unfinished business (and no small amount of an almost puppy-like aversion to people disliking him, something that Shea used to find cute and was now highly unwelcome), logically Shea had long-since recognized that one day Ryan would corner him and try to work through their issues and hash out what, exactly, was left of their relationship.

He had just been hoping to prevent that day from ever coming.

“We don’t need to do this,” were his first words as soon as he smelled Ryan approach from behind him in the corner of the hotel bar that their colleagues were visiting perhaps a little too liberally.

“Shea,” Ryan sighed, and Shea hadn’t even turned around yet but he knew exactly what expression to expect, and he wasn’t disappointed: big eyes with seemingly omnipresent bags under them staring searchingly into his own, soft downturning around the corners of his mouth, head falling just slightly to the side. Shoulders back, posture confident but open, trying to seem welcoming. It worked, on people who didn’t know him well.

It was just too bad that Shea knew him well enough to recognize this first step in their old dance, Ryan trying to placate him when he was angry, whether it be at a bad call or falling out of the playoffs or something Ryan had done. Ryan would be the calm, reasonable one, the one to initiate everything, and Shea would explode, passionately fervent about what was important to him, and then Ryan would placate him with soothing tones and an unending gaze, stepping closer until he could slip a hand around the back of Shea’s neck and stroke his thumb along the edge of his hair, fingers dancing lightly over their bonding mark  _knowing_  about the endorphins that would be triggered in their wake, and Shea would gentle for him  _(only ever for him)_  and sag into his arms, angry but exhausted, and Ryan would somehow make it feel like everything was okay.

But that wouldn’t work anymore, because the mark on Shea’s shoulder was now nothing but a tangle of scar tissue and regrets, and Ryan’s arms hadn’t been his place of solace in nearly three years.

He knew better now than to let somebody coax him like they were calming a riled horse. He knew not to trust in bonds, in people who could use trust and intimacy to make you care about them just to use that emotion to their advantage. Wolves were dangerous, just like the humans had always said; it was just their hearts one had to avoid instead of their teeth. Humans were safer, their intentions more easily telegraphed; if Roman tried to convince him of something, he had to do it through determination and a strong argument, and Shea was sure that physiological responses and chemical reactions and a quiver in his heart had nothing to do with it. He couldn’t say the same for other wolves.

And he knew better now than to trust a single bit of Ryan Suter’s practiced calm, and he knew exactly how to ruin it: by going off-script.

“No,” he said, shaking his head matter-of-factly.

Ryan blinked.

“What do you mean,  _no_?”

“I mean no. I’m not talking about this with you.”

He tried not to take too much pride in how Ryan began to appear vexed.

“Well why the hell not?”

“Because I don’t want to?” He carefully left out how there was also a limited amount of time he could spend holding back the torrent of emotions he always felt at the sight of Ryan, and that he at equal intervals wanted to both break down sobbing and punch him in the face.

“Shea, we have to talk about this sometime.”

He shook his head. “Actually, we don’t. We never have to talk about any of it. I don’t care how uncomfortable it makes you feel, because you’ve made me feel pretty damn  _uncomfortable_  every day for the last three years. You made your decisions, and I’ve been dealing with the aftermath ever since. There’s no magical way you can  _fix_  this, Ryan. You can’t just stroke my neck and make me give in anymore.”

Ryan’s face fell, turning soft and sad in a move that screamed of pity and made Shea’s hair stand on end. “Shea,” Ryan breathed, a picture of contriteness, “That’s not what I – you know that’s not-”

“No. You don’t get to do any of that, talk about what I – what I  _know_ , because I thought I knew a lot about you that all turned out to be wrong. You turned my entire fucking  _world_  upside down and fucked off to Minnesota and left me with half a heart and a whole lot of trust issues. No amount of sad puppy faces can make that better.”

He was becoming increasingly aware of their location; the hotel bar wasn’t ideal what with the way the wolves in the room had to recognize what was going on and the fact that anybody could walk by and hear their conversation, but the only other option would be going back to one of their hotel rooms and the last thing Shea wanted was to be alone in a closed room with Ryan Suter.

“I’m not trying to – can I at least explain why?” Ryan dragged a hand through his hair, looking increasingly frustrated, which in turn made Shea feel a mild pulse of satisfaction at ruining his collected demeanor.

“There’s no reason; it doesn’t make a difference.”

Roman had once told him that grief counselors said there was no such thing as closure, that there was no one event or piece of information that could suddenly make a loss feel okay, feel less huge and cavernous and painful. The comment was completely apropos of nothing and without context or explanation, but it had stuck with Shea, wormed its way through his anger and his hurt. He was entitled to grieve as he saw fit (and he was grieving, for so many things: for their relationship, for feeling safe and whole, for the trust that had been betrayed, for the happiness that had lost its purity, for their partnership on and off the ice, for the pack they had raised and the future they were supposed to have together), and if he wanted to be angry about it forever as a coping mechanism, he could do that, because there were no magic explanations that were going to make things stop hurting – knowing  _why_  Ryan had chosen to abandon him, leave him vulnerable and scraped raw and utterly betrayed, would do nothing to undo his actions. It couldn’t make the hurt go away. If anything it might just make him feel worse.

And in the end, he really didn’t want to know why Ryan had decided that somebody else’s love was better than his. He didn’t want to know about any of it at all.

Mostly, he wanted Ryan to shut up, leave him alone and let him survive this weekend in peace. They could play together with minimal interaction off of the ice. It was wholly possible and more than a little doable.

Ryan was just the only one who failed to see that.

“Of course it makes a difference! You think I just – I know what I did was unconscionable, and I wanted to explain about – about me and Zach-”

“And what will that fix? Your conscience?” He glanced around them and lowered his voice enough that the wolves in the room would have to strain to listen. “It’s not going to get me a mate back, and it’s not going to fix the last three years of feeling like I want to claw my insides out to make the emptiness go away, and it’s not going to make me feel better. There is no combination of words that can ever make me feel better, and if those words  _did_  exist, I strongly doubt they would involve anything to do with hearing how the purity of your love with Parise transcends fucking  _mating_  bonds.”

It did feel good though, he would admit, to be able to take even a fraction of the seething cloud of anger he’d been amassing in the space where Ryan used to be and actually direct it at its intended target, instead of just snapping at wolves who didn’t recognize that they were three years too late for the happy pack they were looking for. It felt even better to do it with a quick-paced sort of calm that threw Ryan off his game. After Ryan had been the one to dictate the largest most devastating changes of his life, it felt nice to be the one directing the conversation for once.

“Jesus Christ, Shea, you’re fucking miserable!” Ryan hissed, “And yeah, I feel kind of fucking responsible for that seeing as I  _am_  responsible for it and we both know it. So sue me for trying to help you out! You’re right, I don’t know what to do to make things better, but does that make me so wrong for wanting to try? Just because we aren’t – we aren’t together anymore doesn’t mean that I  _hate_  you or something. God, you’ve become like the boogeyman of the league – everyone whispers to each other about how you’ve gone off the deep end, how you snarl at your pack and barely acknowledge them and how you treat them like shit and we all know it’s because of me, so yeah, I kind of feel like I should be doing something to fix this.”

Shea had to choke around the snarl threatening to rise in his throat; as it was, he grabbed Ryan by the front of his shirt and tugged him none-too-gently further towards the wall and away from prying eyes and ears. He barely resisted slamming him against the wall.

“It’s not because of  _you_ ,” he snapped in a low voice, seething with anger. “It’s because you  _broke our bond_. You wouldn’t know what that feels like, seeing as you went and bonded immediately to someone else. You don’t have this big empty hole in your chest that constantly reminds you of how the one person who was supposed to love you forever decided you weren’t fucking  _worth it-_ ”

He was shocked into silence when Ryan was the one to shove  _him_  against the wall.

“I feel it too, okay?” he hissed, face much too close for Shea’s liking. “The hole where our bond was? I have it too. My bond with Zach didn’t just cover it up or something. Sure, maybe it distracts me from it, and you’re right, at least I have a connection to rely on, but that doesn’t mean it still doesn’t hurt me to have broken our bond.”

“Good! I’m fucking glad! Then you should be able to fucking realize that there's  _nothing_  that you can do to make any of that better. The bond was destroyed and you’ve moved on; pulling this sympathy bullshit and bringing it all up again is only going to make things worse. What I do with my life and  _my_  pack is none of your business anymore. You made your choices, now you have to deal with them. You wanted to leave me; that means if I say I don’t want anything to do with you anymore, you have to respect that and leave me the fuck  _alone_.”

Ryan leaned backwards, still holding onto Shea’s shirt but his grip looser, softening along with his expression. “Shea,” he breathed again, that same sad sigh that made Shea grit his teeth at the emotions that weren’t allowed to be there. “I just…you’re not  _happy_.”

He wrenched himself out of Ryan’s hold and took a further step away, never once breaking his gaze.

“And I’m going to continue being unhappy, and I’m going to do it however I choose. And I want to do it  _alone_ , without you and your pity party. You want to know what you can do to make me feel better? Deal with your guilt on your own and stop talking to me about it. I can’t ever move on, but at least I can pretend that I can if I don’t have you following me around looking for some sort of forgiveness. Go back to Parise, have a great life and stay out mine.”

He stared at Ryan for a brief moment, looking for something in his expression and unsure of what it was. Not finding anything satisfactory there, he turned and walked away, ignoring the stares of the wolves around him that trailed him from the room.

He’d been right that he and Ryan could play on a team together without needing to talk off of the ice. Ryan didn’t try bringing anything up again.

Shea went back to Nashville with a hollow sense of satisfaction, a phone full of selfies Roman took with his dogs, and a low-boiling urge to figure out just who in his excuse of a pack had been gossiping enough about him that his newfound  _reputation_  had been spread to the rest of the league.


	10. Predators: Weber/Josi I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was from a prompt meme where people send in the first line of a short ficlet.
> 
> 2/6/15
> 
> onthesewings prompted: Roman reaches out with a careful, tentative hand, nodding to the scar on Shea's shoulder, poised to pull back at the first sign of discomfort.

Shea flinches reflexively, like he’s been burned before Roman even touches him, and Roman snatches his hand back accordingly, stuttering apologies immediately.

“No!” Shea interrupts quickly, his face already flushing, “I mean…no. Don’t feel bad, it’s not - that’s not about you, I just…that’s not something I like to think about a lot.”

“Did it hurt?” Roman asks immediately before checking himself and grimacing.   
“Not that you have to tell me-”

Shea smiles softly and shakes his head, somewhat chagrined. “Not at the time, I guess. I…it used to mean good things. And…”

He seems to almost steel himself before he suddenly reaches out and snatches Roman’s hand in his own, before pressing his palm oh-so-gently against the mark on his neck and looking directly into Roman’s eyes, swallowing visibly.

“And I want it to mean good things again.”


	11. Sabres: Stafford, Myers, Enroth Trade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written after Drew Stafford and Tyler Myers were traded to Winnipeg and Jhonas Enroth was traded to Dallas, i.e., one of the most miserable days of my life. (And yes, I meant every word of this fic at the time.)
> 
> 2/11/15

There wasn’t really any time to say goodbye. It all happened so fast – Drew and Tyler, and then Jhonas… They had press to do, things to pack, planes to catch and teams to meet. There wasn’t time for anything big or special. There wasn’t time to do much of anything.

Drew and Tyler said goodbye first, in the locker room, with Drew extracting promises from every person who refused to meet his eyes that they would take care of each other, that even if nobody took over as alpha, they would look after each other and rely on each other and they would keep their pack together. And everybody had nodded and given a token reply and it was so completely obvious that they were barely paying attention to him, but he didn’t have time for a longer conversation, to make them hear him out when they were all so wrapped up in their own heads and he, he had to leave for a new team for the first time in his NHL career.

This time, Drew was the one leaving everybody behind.

Jhonas was gone only hours later, and by then they were all almost expecting the blow. Murray had explicitly stated that nobody was above being traded and that he wasn’t pleased with the state of their team. Really, it was probably a blessing for anyone who got to leave.

(Jhonas had a brand new mask, only a week old, and now he would never use it again. He left it in a box on Mike’s doorstep on his way to the airport.

Mike pulled it out only once, to see what it was, before he carefully put it back in the box and placed the box at the back of a storage closet where he knew he’d never see it again.)

There wasn’t a pack after that. The wolves were still there, those that were left, but if the rest of the NHL meant anything, playing for the same team was not what made a group of wolves into a pack. A pack meant friendship and camaraderie and caring and love, and that was dangerous when you were no more than chattel. It had been dangerous from the start, but when they’d been strong and whole and loved, it had felt like a risk that was safe to take.

It was only now that they realized why some teams didn’t have packs. If you didn’t have a pack, you didn’t get attached to the other wolves around you, and it wouldn’t hurt so much when they left. With a team as fluid as theirs with such a high turnover rate, having a pack just wasn’t worth the time and effort and heartbreak that it entailed.

It just wasn’t worth it.

So the pack just…ceased to be. They didn’t go to each other’s rooms anymore, or touch each other at all. Their beds felt too big, too cold and empty, but that was safe. That meant they couldn’t get hurt.

They didn’t talk about what they used to be. Sometimes, it felt like there was some sort of silent memorial in the air: “Once, a pack was here.” And it was a pack that had begun long before any of their time, had continued longer than they’d been alive, and it was going to end with them.

There was only so much abuse something could take before it broke, and the Sabres pack had been taking abuse since its inception.

And when new wolves came to training camp and asked them in quiet voices about the pack, they were told flatly that there was no pack. The Sabres didn’t have a pack.

They knew better now.


	12. Predators: Carter/Pekka

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> onthesewings prompted: Wolves and "12. things you said when you thought i was asleep"
> 
> 3/3/15

“I’m gonna tell you one day.  I promise.  Probably.  I’m gonna probably most likely tell you one day.”

A hand stroked gently through Pekka’s hair.  He struggled not to give into the temptation of pressing up into it and instead buried his face further into the soft flannel at Carter’s hip, heaving a loud sigh with all of the air of somebody settling back to sleep (which admittedly is what he had been before Carter started talking).

“I know you know - well, you know  _something’s_  weird on the team, and I know you know that  _I_  know what it is, and I know it bothers you that I don’t talk about it but…it’s just better not to, sometimes.  It’s safer, for all of us.

“But I hate not telling you.  I want to - well obviously I want to talk about it because I’m doing that right now.  But we just have to hold on a bit longer, okay?  It’s just not the right time yet.  I want to wait for things to settle down more, so I can make sure that you’re safe.”

The hand strayed lower, ghosting fleetingly over Pekka’s cheek and jaw before smoothing the hair back from his forehead.  He felt Carter shift next to him before a soft kiss was pressed to his brow.

“I’m always going to make sure you’re safe, okay?  If things get bad, I’m going to keep you safe.  And if - and if things get bad with  _me_ , and he’s upset with me and something goes wrong…this is your team, and you deserve to be here, so if I have to, to remove myself from the equation so he treats you right, I’ll do it, okay?  I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you safe, no matter what.

"I mean, you’re mine, right, sweetheart?  I gotta take care of what’s mine.”

He shifted again, this time properly lying down next to Pekka, wrapping his arms tightly around Pekka’s waist and tucking his nose against his collarbone. He fell asleep quickly, his breathing even against the skin of Pekka’s chest, but Pekka stayed awake long afterwards, mind mulling endlessly over what he’d heard while rubbing a hand lazily up and down Carter’s back.

Carter was right that Pekka was dying to know what was wrong (and it was obvious to anyone with eyes that something was very wrong on their team and that Carter knew what that was).  But if things turned this ephemeral “bad” that Carter seemed to fear so much that he thought he would somehow have to  _leave_  Pekka to keep him safe…

Well.  Pekka would just have to step in and take care of that, wouldn’t he.

After all, Carter was his, too.


	13. Predators: Dicky/Nealer I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bluecamellia prompted: i was about to send u one of those prompt things earlier but then u got me distracted :O so~ "things you said when you thought i was asleep" dicky/nealer :DDDDDDDD
> 
> 3/3/15

Rich looked down at the man asleep against his shoulder, face pressed close enough that Rich could feel warm exhalations against his neck.  The title screen of the movie they’d been watching looped mutely on the forgotten television in front of them, as it had for the last fifteen minutes.

He should probably wake him up.  After all, Nealer was much more important to the team than Rich.  It wouldn’t matter to anyone but him if Rich fucked up his back sleeping upright on a couch, but Nealer was their star forward.  They needed him well-rested and ready for tomorrow’s game.

And yet, it was edging towards twenty minutes since the credits finished rolling, and Rich had still yet to do anything.

He wanted to enjoy it for a moment, to have these selfish seconds to himself where he could relax against the couch with Nealer tucked securely under his arm, bodies pressed together from shoulder to thigh, and nuzzle his face close against Nealer’s ridiculous hair and breathe in his scent and pretend for a few blissful minutes that this was something he could have, that his presence in Nashville, in Nealer’s life wasn’t temporary, that his claim on James Neal existed outside of his own fantasies.  That Nealer wanted to come home to him every night and wasn’t pining after the perfect husband in Pittsburgh, that there was somebody who missed him when he wasn’t around.

For just a few moments, Rich wanted to enjoy pretending that he had a pack and a mate that loved him and that he wasn’t completely and utterly alone.

“Just a few more minutes, okay?” he whispered, pressing a kiss to the top of Nealer’s head before gently rubbing his face against it.

He could at least have his fantasy for that long, couldn’t he?

Against his chest, James smiled.


	14. Predators: Paulie/Nealer I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written after Robert Bortuzzo was traded from the Penguins to the Blues, making Paul Martin the only wolf left on the Penguins. I.e., the only time I will ever come anywhere close to writing the Penguins in this AU.
> 
> 3/5/15

“I’m not  _worried_ , Paulie, Jesus, I’m just…I’m  _concerned_ , okay?  It’s the first time you’ve been packless in like, forever, and I can’t be there with you, so sue me if I want to make sure you’re doing okay, alright?”

If there was one thing that James Neal learned at the trade deadline, it was that he was 110% done with his pseudo-husband’s crap.

“I’m not upset that you care about me, James, I’m just…look, I really am fine, okay?  There were only two of us anyway, being alone isn’t that different.”

“Not that different  _my smoking hot ass_ , there is a serious difference between having one person and being alone and I know that because I see it every day, so don’t you pull that bullshit with me.”

This argument had been ongoing in one form or another ever since Borts was traded to St. Louis.  James wasn’t afraid to admit he was a little selfish about the whole thing; his primary response hadn’t been concern for Borts having to go to a new team and join a new pack, but an intense fear for Paulie who was now effectively the entirety of the Penguins pack.  Paul had told him enough stories about what happened to lone wolves (and James saw enough of them every day in the locker room) that he didn’t feel like he was overreacting by having a healthy amount of concern for Paul living without a pack for an extended period of time, especially when James himself was over five hundred miles away.

“Okay, it’s a  _little_  different, but I guess it hasn’t really affected me –  _yet_ , yes James, I know it will probably bother me more later, but right now I really am okay.  I mean, I’m sad, it sucks not having a pack, but we were never really a highly involved pack even when there were more of us.  Maybe after my first full moon alone I’ll have a different answer, but right now not a whole lot has changed.  I’m honestly more concerned for how Borts is doing in his new pack.”

“He says it’s good,” James grumbled, because yeah, he’d been checking up on Borts too.  Somewhere along the line between stumbling onto his first Pittsburgh puppy pile and being regularly used as a body pillow by Rich Clune (which was something he hated to admit he was actually really starting to miss), James had found himself becoming some sort of den mother for wayward wolves, and if Mazanec’s reaction to him the last time he was called up meant anything (“Cuddle in my room or yours?”), his reputation was apparently spreading.  He didn’t really mind it, as long as Shea didn’t take notice of it (as it was, Shea treated him as he did the rest of the humans on the team, meaning he was actually friendly and James didn’t want to do anything to affect that), but with that role came an intense urge to check up on everybody all of the time.

And it appeared that stupid defensemen in the Pittsburgh area needed the most checking up on.

“See?  The trade doesn’t have to be a bad thing.”

 “You make it sound like you’re happy about it.” James most definitely was not pouting.

“Stop pouting, you know I’m not.  But I can’t do anything to change it, so I may as well look on the bright side and be happy that Borts is getting a new start, right?”

“But the new start means that you’re alone, and I’m sorry, no matter how many times you tell me you’re okay with that I don’t think  _I_  can ever be okay with that.”

There was a heavy sigh from down the phone line before Paul said, “That’s pretty much how I feel about you being in Nashville without me, okay?  Now you know why I’m always chasing after you to be careful, especially with Clune gone – because you’re alone, and I can’t be there to take care of you.”

“But it’s different,” James said around the knot forming in his chest at the too-tender quality of Paul’s words.  “I’m human, I don’t have, like, the cuddle imperative that you guys do.  It doesn’t hurt me not to be around wolves, and I’m still not totally convinced that it’s dangerous for me to be around Shea.  There aren’t any stories about humans going a little nutty thanks to a lack of werewolves.”

Maybe nutty was too harsh of a word, at least for the stories Paulie had told James.  But apparently no wolf in the league would deny that Marty St. Louis had gotten a little weird after Richards and Lecavalier left, and he  _still_  got kind of touchy about Stammer.

“That doesn’t mean I still don’t worry about nobody being there to protect you if something goes wrong – and that’s not just about Shea, you never know if a nomadic pack might show up and scent a wolf on you, there’s just – a lot of things can happen while we’re apart, okay? All I’m saying is, the way you’re worried about me is exactly how I’m worried about you.  I’m always concerned about if you’re okay and I’m always wishing that I could be there to check on you in person so I wouldn’t have to keep asking.  Right now, it’s just a reality of our situation.”

James was silent for a few long seconds before whining, “But it  _sucks_!”

If he closed his eyes, it almost felt like Paul was laughing next to him.

“I know, Jamie.  It sucks a lot.  But we’ve been making it work so far and we’ll keep making it work now.  Look, playoffs are coming up and I know we won’t have a lot of time to visit, but afterwards we’ll have the whole summer together and I can spend time with my family to get rid of any pack-loneliness and who knows, maybe by next fall there will be more wolves playing in Pittsburgh.  Everything will work itself out.”

“…I’m still not going to stop worrying about you, just so you know.  You can’t make me.”

“I love you too, James.”


	15. Predators: Weber/Josi II, Post-2014 All-Star Game

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompted wolfy Shea Weber, returning home post-2014 All-Star Game.
> 
> 3/26/15

Shea was still on edge as he pulled into his driveway in Nashville. A few hours of supposed decompression on a plane with Filip sending anxious looks his way and he still felt wound up, a thread coiled too tight and ready to break at any moment.

The All-Star game had been…well, it was something. It was letting himself forget, even for a few moments, that the smiles were supposed to be for the camera, to let everyone know how great he and Ryan were obviously getting along now.  They weren’t for him.  They weren’t real.

(They were real on both sides, and they both knew it. No matter how Shea felt about Ryan now and vice versa, a part of them still wanted it too much for it to have been an act for long.)

Pretending had been so  _nice_ , to for a few moments act like nothing had changed and they still played on a team together and Zach Parise and the Minnesota Wild weren’t even thoughts in the periphery.  A few times, Shea had felt himself smile at Ryan like it was real, like they were still together and this wasn’t just one giant act for the media to make for a feel-good story and let Jonathan Toews feel smug about his draft skills.

But it had to come to an end.  The weekend was over and like the clock striking midnight on a pumpkin carriage, Shea’s happy facade crumbled to pieces.

Ryan didn’t want it to be that way, of course.  Ryan saw the whole day as a perfect example of what he’d told Shea they could have before: a friendship the way they used to be, where they smiled and joked and personal space didn’t exist and everything felt okay.  But like this weekend, that fantasy could only exist in a world where they played on the same team and Zach Parise (Ryan’s  _mate_ ) wasn’t a factor.

There was a reason Shea no longer tried to be an idealist. The ideal situation wasn’t something that could ever exist in the real world outside of a few fragile, fleeting moments one day a year.

Now reality had returned, and Shea was once again alone, sitting in his driveway with his hands clenched around the steering wheel, breathing too quickly while his dogs barked from somewhere inside his house and Ryan Suter went home to his mate in Minnesota and didn’t give one more thought to the havoc he’d once again wreaked on Shea Weber.

(That wasn’t true, but – well, nobody had ever accused Shea of being a reliable narrator.)

A knock on his window sent him flinching out of his thoughts, a growl already rolling up his throat before he caught a glimpse of the rakish smile peering at him through the glass.

“Are you just going to sit here all night?” Roman’s voice was muffled through the window.  It was the best thing Shea had heard in the last three days.

“Sorry, just tired,” he muttered as he opened the door, sliding out of the car with a grimace before slamming the door shut behind him and making for the trunk, Roman following at his shoulder the entire way.

“I  _bet_.”

When Shea glanced at him over his shoulder, Roman was doing something ridiculous with his eyebrows, but his smile was too sharp and there was an uncertainty in his eyes.  Shea shrugged exaggeratedly and grabbed his bags from the trunk, slamming it closed again as he leveled Roman a look.

“I actually didn’t do all that much, Rome.  Drank, watched guys make idiots of themselves, there was something about hockey somewhere along the way.  Not much to write home about.”

“What,” Roman protested, once again following closely behind him as Shea walked up the driveway towards his house, “No wild and crazy things to tell your grandkids about one day?”

“I’m going to have very disappointing stories for them,” Shea agreed, opening the front door and making it all of two steps inside before he was met with a barrage of furiously drooling muzzles.

“Hey guys,” he sang softly as he set down his bags and got to one knee, getting Dug’s nose nearly in his mouth for his troubles.  He continued greeting the dogs as Roman closed the door behind him, more focused on giving them a good rubdown in apology for disappearing on them than the weird mood Roman seemed to be in.

“They missed you.”

And Shea didn’t even have to be looking at Roman to hear the strange weight in his voice.  When he glanced back at Roman this time (and got Rod’s tongue in his ear in the process), his smile appeared strained, his eyes guarded.

“I missed them too,” Shea said slowly, looking at the dogs and having the distinct feeling that they weren’t talking about them anymore.

“Oh?  You didn’t, like…make new friends at the All-Star game?”

Shea stood and raised an eyebrow.  “I didn’t meet any new dogs, if that’s what you’re asking, no.”

If Roman was going to be obtuse, Shea could too. He picked up his bags again and started up the stairs.  He didn’t have to say anything for Roman to follow him.  The dogs trailed behind in one long procession.

“Well, no, but like, you know.”

“I do.” It was a question even with the sarcastically flat tone.

“Okay, I mean like, did you, uh, catch up with friends? Like, the Team Canada guys, didn’t you have a good time with them?”

Shea weighed his answers as he entered his bedroom and shrugged.  “Yeah, that was nice.”

He started sorting through his laundry, enjoying the scent of increasing frustration emanating from Roman.  He was pretty sure he knew what this was about now, and while Roman’s worries were mostly unfounded (not that Roman knew that, of course), it wasn’t often that Shea had a chance to rile him up like this.

And God, but something about being around Roman made everything that had made him tense and agitated all weekend just melt away.  Maybe it was his scent, or his smile, or just the fact that he wanted to be around Shea too, but nothing felt so painful or looked so dire when a fully grown Swiss man was following you around looking for your attention like you’d accidentally adopted a third dog without knowing it.

(Things were just so  _easy_  with Roman, with someone who wasn’t a wolf and didn’t put the expectations of an alpha on him, didn’t show him the pity that one aimed at a wolf pathetic enough to be abandoned by his own mate.  Nothing about his relationship with Roman needed bothering with the nuances of scent, the semantics of pack relations or the urges of inhuman biology.  It felt more real to Shea than anything he’d ever experienced before and it barely existed at all.)

“And…Ryan?  You guys caught up a bit, yeah?  I saw all the stuff about you two playing together again, you looked…happy.  So that was nice, right?”

Roman didn’t sound like he knew what he wanted Shea’s answer to be.

(Shea wasn’t so sure either.)

“It was okay, I guess.  We talked a bit.  Some things were worked out.  Some…weren’t.”

“Oh.  Are you…I mean, you’re okay, right?”  When Shea looked up from his laundry, Roman appeared torn between making a joke out of bravado and something else, something to do with that guarded look behind his eyes, and Shea realized that there was a choice here, between making a joke and learning what Roman wanted to protect so badly, and it came to him with a start that he really,  _really_  didn’t want thinking about Ryan Suter to ruin any more chances in his life. Not when something better might be on the line.

“I wasn’t having such a great time when I was with him, but I’m kind of feeling better now.”

The smile Roman flashed him was quick, reflexive, but there was more than relief in the way his face relaxed.  If Shea was a particularly romantic soul, he’d posit that it was hope.

“It’s because you’re with me now, huh?  Is that it?”  He was doing the same ridiculous thing with his eyebrows again, and this time Shea let himself smile back.

“You’ve got a lot to do with it, yeah.”

And it was nearly comical, how fast Roman’s face went from cheesily smug to blinking in surprise that he failed to hide well.

“Is it because I’m  _special_?” he said weakly, the jocularity in his voice made thin by his poor cover-up.

“Jos, you’re the most special guy I know.”  And before Roman’s face could fall, Shea added, “And yeah, you’re the most special to me, too.”

Roman was at an actual, visible loss for words and Shea took a moment to appreciate how a red flush was creeping out from under his shirt and his scent turned sweet and warm and pleased, fresh-baked gingerbread at Christmas that Shea wanted to bury his face in.

When Roman finally found his words again, he choked, “Yeah?” and there was so much weight in that word, so much that Shea could build up or tear apart in a matter of syllables.

He smiled in what he hoped was a gentle manner and stepped closer, his smile growing as Roman held his ground, and slid a hand around the nape of Roman’s neck, fingers just touching the edge of his hairline.

“Yeah, Rome,” he said, his thumb brushing against a leaping vein.  “You’re special.”

And if Roman were a wolf, he would know the meaning behind Shea’s movements, the intent, and realize just how special he was. But he wasn’t a wolf, and so he smiled, breathless and a little unsure of himself with bright, sunshiney excitement filtering through his scent, and Shea smiled back, because Roman wasn’t a wolf and things felt all the more perfect because of it.


	16. Sabres: Cubs Post-Trades

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First Sabres fic written since the Stafford/Myers/Enroth trades.
> 
> 4/3/15

“Webby’s really mad lately,” Rasmus whispered into the quiet of the room.  His words hung there in the silence, unanswered, until Nikita grunted and rolled over, wrapping an arm around Rasmus’s waist from behind and pressing his face between his shoulder blades.

“Everyone is mad; everything sucks.”

That was pretty much an undeniable fact, but still.

“I know, but he is…more mad.  We are all upset, but he’s…I don’t know.”

“Furious?  Pissed off? Bitchy?”  There was a smirk in Grigo’s voice before it appeared on his face in front of Rasmus; he sighed and rolled his eyes.

“Yes, I guess, but, you know.  He’s…”

He sighed again, unable to put it to words.  It was distressing, how the pack had fallen to shambles after the trades. It felt like the floor disappeared from under them and they were left alone, no alpha and no pack and nobody to give a shit about them.  The pack just…stopped.  All of the support, the cuddling, the  _caring_  – that was gone.  Even this, the three of them lumped in a bed together trying to suppress miserable thoughts that felt now like constant companions, felt taboo.  When the pack disintegrated, it was with the unspoken understanding that all pack activities were to cease.  Rasmus didn’t know how the rest of the pack –  _the rest of the wolves, they’re not pack anymore_  – would handle knowing what was going on, but hurt or pissed off, he knew they wouldn’t like it.

But he didn’t understand  _why_  the pack fell apart.  He’d been there for the loss of an alpha before: he and Nikita entered the pack in the midst of Jason’s departure and Rasmus was there when Ryan was traded. In the past, another alpha had been there or had stepped up to fill in the gap.  This time, though – this time, the pack just…

Gave up.

It was like everyone silently decided that it wasn’t worth trying anymore, that if they couldn’t succeed in hockey, why would they ever think they could succeed in running a pack when all prior evidence showed that it was only a futile and ultimately painful experience?  Within days of the trade, it was all just  _gone_ , without warning, without a word.

They weren’t a pack anymore, and they weren’t to act like it.

Some guys were just pretending that they were human.  Cody and Marcus stuck to the humans in the team and acted like nothing was wrong.  Zemgus got injured and retreated, addressing pack members the way he would any teammate: they were friends, but they were nothing more, and they weren’t to talk about the pack.  Mark was in Rochester, which was probably better for him because Rasmus knew it would kill him to see the pack like this.

And Mike…Mike threw himself into the team, into being the alternate captain in Gorgie’s place.  He stood up for the team, for the city, and he played his heart out every game like there was nothing for him off the ice.  He looked out for the team’s wellbeing and was a great team leader, but he would be damned if he acknowledged the pack.

He’d stopped acknowledging the pack when Jhonas left him with an unused Sabres mask to remember him by.

And his reaction was probably the one that hurt the most, because with Jhonas and Drew gone, Mike was the senior-most member of the pack, both in tenure and status.  Following a natural progression just as they had with Drew, the pack member with the most seniority usually took over as alpha.  But Mike had never had an interest in being an alpha, had always thrived as a support system to leadership: the guy behind the scenes, taking care of his team and his pack, fighting for them when he had to, taking care of them off the ice.  He was the textbook definition of an excellent beta.

But without an alpha to support (or even an unwilling, uncomfortable beta), he’d turned himself off to all pack activities, wholesale.  And as he put all of himself into the team and the season came to a close and the fans started making their opinions known now more than ever…

He was just so  _angry_  all the time.

Hurt played a large role in it, Rasmus knew: hurt over the trades, over the team’s state and rankings, over the way things had changed so rapidly with the rebuild, over the way the fans treated them.  The fans put up with a lot for them, but nothing could ever make you forget your home fans booing you and cheering for the other team.  Nobody could forget the home fans hoping that you would fail so somebody better could be drafted to replace you.

Rasmus knew he wasn’t on the chopping block.  He knew that he and Nikita and possibly Zemgus and Sam were among the few “safe” players, the ones who Murray refused to trade or cut loose.

But everyone else was cannon fodder, and Webby knew he wasn’t an elite defenseman, not by league standards.  He was a solid player, a team player, but he wasn’t the kind of guy who was a hot commodity on the trade market and he wasn’t a guy with a lot of prospects outside of Buffalo (at least not any that would play him the way he played here) and they all knew it, Webby most of all.  And that had to weigh on him, how nothing was permanent.

If the team knew anything, it was that permanency was a luxury they didn’t have, and the pack knew that better than anyone.

And it was  _terrifying_  to be in the midst of that, to watch your team and your pack fall apart around you, dispensable and replaceable parts dropping off and switching out all around you, knowing that all of your friends and all of your support system could be gone in a few months and there was nothing you could do about it.  It was worse as a cub, and Rasmus would call himself a cub if that meant somebody would step up as an alpha and help them, because he would readily admit that nobody had a clue what they were doing anymore. The young guys were all left alone to fend for themselves, without an alpha and with the explicit understanding that the wolves they’d previously relied on for comfort were no longer available to them, no matter how physically present they were.

And that’s what led to now, nights like this, the three of them piled in Nikita’s bed in secret, acting like if they closed their eyes and tried hard enough they could pretend that nothing had changed, that they still had a pack, that they were still whole.

But on nights like this, when all Rasmus could think about was how mad Mike was, how Jhonas hadn’t tried to meet up with the pack when they visited Dallas (did he know what had happened to them or did he just not care? Did anyone care about what happened to them anymore?), how Drew and Mysey had only called them once shortly after the trade before getting caught up in the success and excitement of their new team, how the team was falling apart and the pack was already shattered and everything felt much scarier than it should and the future was a bottomless gaping maw stretching wide in front of them – well.

On nights like these, even wedged between Nikita and Misha like nothing was wrong and everything was okay, Rasmus got the distinct feeling that he finally understood what Drew must have felt like as the last vestige of the Presidents’ Trophy run, of the amazingly strong pack that went with it.  Because Rasmus was a vestige now too, of a pack that perhaps hadn’t been great, but one that had been good.  One that had been loving and happy in the face of adversity and one that had been home.

And now that pack was gone and he was left adrift, constantly staring at the past and wishing it was the present so that things didn’t have to feel so terrifying and miserable and lonely and wrong.


	17. Panthers/Canucks: Luongo/Lack I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bluecamellia prompted a Lu/Lack werewolves story.
> 
> 4/20/15

“What were your old packs like?”

Lu snorted at Aaron’s question, raising an eyebrow. “You’re going to have to be more specific, kid.  Between the four of us we’ve played in literally half the teams in the league. That’s a lot of packs.”

“These are a lot of words for people who are supposed to be sleeping.” Willie didn’t even bother to open his eyes from where his face was mostly buried in a pillow on Aaron’s other side, his arm slung low around Aaron’s waist with his hand outstretched far enough that the backs of his fingers brushed against Lu’s stomach with every inhale.  Jags made a chuffing sound of laughter on Lu’s other side that he tried to muffle against Lu’s back, showing that he obviously wasn’t asleep either.  The only one who  _was_  properly asleep was Soupy, passed out and dead to the world with his back pressed against Willie’s.

“I can’t sleep,” Aaron asserted in the voice of someone who obviously hadn’t even tried.  “So you guys should tell me stories.”

 “You want a bedtime story,” Lu deadpanned.

 Aaron’s innocent expression was wholly unbelievable. They’d have to work on that. “Hotel beds are weird.  I just can’t get comfortable without a story.”

“And here I thought the weird part was that you’re trying to sleep in a pile of middle-aged men.”

 “Speak for yourself,” Willie grumbled into his pillow, still refusing to open his eyes but blindly tapping his hand against Lu’s stomach. “Actually, don’t. Go to sleep.”

 “I just want a story.” Aaron’s pout would have gone a lot further if Willie’s eyes were actually open. Try as he might to present himself as a strong and firm alpha, Aaron was Willie’s first cub and everyone knew Willie melted like butter at the first hint of a sad face.

Lu was a bit more practiced in denying pouting puppydog faces, but he had also spent some time in close contact with the living embodiment of sunshine.  As it was, though, he could tell that Aaron wasn’t going to settle down if they didn’t give him something.  Seeing as Jags seemed more willing to listen and laugh at everyone else’s expense and Willie just wanted them all to shut up, Lu was left to huff a sigh and say, “Okay, fine.  One story. What do you want to know about?”

 “Vancouver,” Aaron said immediately, almost a hint too fast.

Lu blinked at him.  “You’ll have to be a little more specific than that if we’re talking about just one story.”

 This time Aaron squirmed around a little uncomfortably, jostling Willie’s arm and making the alpha grumble as shifted to tighten it again, once more trapping the cub against him.  Lu waited him out as Aaron stared down at the arm around his waist as if it held the answers to all of his questions.

“Just…y’know… You and Willie were on the team together, in the same pack, but I’ve never heard you guys talk about it.  And you guys have all been in a million packs-”

“A million and two,” Jags interrupted helpfully.

 “-and this is my first real pack away from my family, so…I guess I was just wondering what it’s like.  What was it like for you guys?”

This time Willie did open his eyes, gaze meeting Lu’s over the top of Aaron’s head for a steady moment before flitting away.

Lu didn’t quite know what to make of that.

 “It was…different, but all packs are different. It was good.”

Aaron leveled him an unimpressed look. “You have to be more descriptive than that.”

“Well you said you wanted a story, but you’ve given me nothing to go on.”

“Okay, fine.  Tell me about your boy there.”

 Lu leaned back and made a face. “My  _what_?”

He could both hear and feel Jags laughing behind him and was sorely tempted to just suddenly lose control of his elbow and have to bury it in Jagr’s side.

Aaron appeared proud of himself, and the media was completely wrong about him being a nice young man.  “Your boy.  Eddie Lack! Tell me about how you met him.”

 “I met him at training camp and he freaked out about getting to room with me.”

“You’re not even trying to tell a story.”

“Just tell him the story so we can all shut up,” Willie interjected loudly.  Soupy continued to snore on obliviously.

 “ _Fine_ , fine, okay.  We met at camp, and I knew there was a Swedish goalie but I didn’t know he was a wolf and I had no idea he’d be like  _that_ …”

~~~

In retrospect, Lu would consider meeting Eddie to be both the best and worst thing to ever happen to him, and his feelings on the topic varied daily depending on how far apart they were and how long it had been since they’d last seen each other.

Eddie had a way of getting under your skin, making himself at home and refusing to ever leave.  Or maybe that was just with Lu.

Cubs were known for being excitable, especially at training camp when they had a summer’s worth of anticipation and energy to address, but Eddie was supposedly more on the adolescent-adult end of the developmental spectrum, so the way that his eyes lit up when he saw Lu and he practically bounced over to meet him was a little surprising.

(The way that Lu was immediately arrested by bright, vibrant blue eyes was even more surprising.)

The kid was scruffy and lanky in a gawky way, all sharp angles and thin limbs topped with a perpetual Cheshire cat smile, and Lu was taken with him before they’d even been introduced, a sudden jerking in his chest that left him breathless with a fondness and possessiveness that felt utterly foreign and even more welcome.

 Soulmates were a wives’ tale that Lu didn’t prescribe to, but in that moment he felt like he could maybe understand how they had begun.

 “Hi, I’m Eddie!  Lack!” the kid had said, chirping his introduction through a too-bright smile and for a moment Lu felt helpless to do more than stare before he made himself take the proffered hand and throw on an easy smile.

 “Hey, so you’re the new kid, right?  The one I’m supposed to be rooming with?”

If anything Eddie looked like he was about to pass out from excitement but he nodded fervently, saying, “Yeah – yes!  It’s going to be the best, I promise, I’m a great roommate.”

“I bet you are.” Lu didn’t even know what he meant by that, but it made Eddie flush the most fascinating red color and Lu decided he’d very much like to replicate that effect, preferably with his nose buried against Eddie’s neck because his scent was like flowers and springtime and sunshine and everything about him made Lu want to bundle that energy into his arms and hold him down until he settled and Lu could scent him to his heart’s content.

Eddie had ended up proving him right that night, because even most wolves would ask permission before inserting themselves half-naked into your bed looking for cuddles when they’d only just met you that day.

 “Unless we’re going to sleep with the pack instead?” Eddie had asked with wide eyes when Lu’s silent, unblinking and too-intense staring stretched out for too long.

 Lu somehow refrained from making any comments as to how very much he didn’t want to share Eddie with the pack right now.  Or at all.  Not when Eddie was looking at him with those wide doe eyes, stripped down to boxer shorts that looked ridiculously small on his long legs, the sheets pooling over his thighs after he’d crawled into  _Lu’s bed_.

It was quite possible, Lu realized suddenly, that he was, for once in his life, completely and utterly out of his depth, and part of him longed for the quiet stability that Cory had provided, a backup and a friend free of all of the added nuance and customs of wolves.

The other part of him didn’t want to be anywhere else.

“Uh, no.” Lu tried not to wince at the sudden rasp to his voice, the way his swallow was audible.  “Everyone’s mostly sticking to their own rooms tonight.”

 “Okay, cool!”

Eddie was so easily placated by that, smiling widely and openly, and Lu would have been content to just stare at him in confused fascination if Eddie didn’t then pat the bed next to him and say, “Come on, I like to cuddle first!”

He wondered if it was possible that this was, in fact, the way that the universe had decided to kill him.  He decided he wouldn’t mind that.

Climbing into that bed, the first time he had ever done anything gingerly in his life, had felt like a promise and a confirmation and a new beginning, or perhaps a foregone conclusion.  Eddie immediately curled into Lu’s side, wrapping his long limbs around him until there wasn’t a single part of them that wasn’t intertwined, and exhaled the sigh of the utterly content, nuzzling his nose behind Lu’s ear and snuffling happily.

“This is nice,” he mumbled against the skin of Lu’s neck, “I really like it here.”

Lu did his best to relax, to remind himself that Eddie was for all intents and purposes a cub to look after and an unsuspecting one at that, and that they were doing nothing out of the norm, just two packmates cuddling before bed.

(It was a lie from the start, but something felt like Eddie knew that, too.)

“Yeah, kid,” Lu sighed, finally allowing himself to slip an arm around Eddie’s back to curve his palm over the nape of his neck, scratching softly at the delicate skin there.  “I like it too.”

That, at least, wasn’t a lie.

~~~

“And then what?”

 “And then we went to sleep, like we should be doing right now.”

“What?” Aaron squawked, loud enough that Jags flinched in protest and even Soupy grumbled in his sleep.  The cub attempted to sit up so he could loom over Lu and better display his offense, but Willie’s arm held him fast, pinning him to the bed as Willie, eyes still shut, leaned in to nip with deadly accuracy at the back of his neck and growl, “Settle down.”

Aaron did, but the offended look on his face let everyone know that he did so unwillingly.

In a lower voice he hissed, “There’s more to the story than that!”

“There is,” Lu agreed gamely.  “But that’s all for another time when we don’t have a game tomorrow and your alpha isn’t about to smother you to shut you up.”

“Amen to that,” Willie mumbled against Aaron’s hair.

“Fine.”

Aaron made sure to look around woundedly so everybody would know how expressly  _not fine_  it was, but they were all far past caring.  The room fell to silence as Jags seemed to finally settle down and Willie’s breathing evened out.

But Lu could see Aaron still awake in front of him, still watching with that same pouting, confused expression.

“Go to sleep.”

Aaron made a face and then sighed.  “Okay.  Just…the way you talk about him…how did you ever leave?”

There had been questions about Lu’s departure from Vancouver before, but none had ever struck so close to home.  He closed his eyes against the flash of pain, the part of himself that asked the same thing.

“Because I had to.”

“What hap-”

“Go to sleep, kid,” Lu interrupted, more forcefully this time.

“But you-”

“Maybe another time.”

That, at least, seemed to finally placate Aaron. He nestled back under Willie’s arm, and then snuck a hand out to fist it in the front of Lu’s shirt, connecting them. His hand was warm through the cotton as he drifted off to sleep.

The question bounced around inside Lu’s head for the rest of the night.


	18. Predators: Dicky/Nealer II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for bluecamellia
> 
> 4/22/15

“This isn’t weird, right?”

“It’s only weird if you make it weird. So shut the fuck up.”

James bit his lip and nodded; even if Rich couldn’t see it, he had to be able to feel it, the way his face was pressed so tightly against the dip between James’s shoulder blades, his stubble scratching against bare skin.

“It’s just-”

His voice was cut off by a loud groan that he could feel reverberating against his spine.  He tried to suppress a shiver and fell silent.

 After a few moments of quiet, when it became clear that James wasn’t going to speak, he felt a sigh against his back followed by a small, lingering press of lips against his left shoulder blade.

“I’m sorry.  What is it?”

At the acknowledgment James squirmed restlessly in the firm embrace of Rich’s arms, all too aware of the bare chest pressed against his own shirtless back.

 “It’s just …is this what you would normally do? With a pack?”

When Rich didn’t answer right away, he rushed to add, words tripping over each other because he couldn’t see Rich’s face to gauge his reaction, “It’s only because I’ve never seen a real pack before other than in Pittsburgh, and they always said they were like, a little different, y’know?  Like, more casual or something.  Brooksie said they were ‘non-traditional.’  So I guess I just wanted to know if this is what regular packs did together, then.”

 Rich’s hands tightened almost reflexively over the cut of James’s hip, thumb pressing tight into the hollow of his hipbone before he sighed again and soothed over the area, resting his forehead against the nape of James’s neck.  The entire time James stayed perfectly still, afraid that if he broke the moment he would never get an answer.

(He’d tried asking about Paul’s family pack and Paulie had been…less than forthcoming with information.  James tried not to let that sting too much, but it wasn’t really working.)

(He just didn’t want what he called love to be Paul’s dirty secret.)

“Mostly, yeah,” Rich said quietly, his words loud in the silence that had fallen over the bedroom.  “There’s a lot of tactile communication, a lot of touching.”

“And…shirtlessness?” James asked slowly.  When Rich didn’t answer right away, he slid a hand up to cover Rich’s wrist on his waist and squeeze it reassuringly.

 Rich sighed again.  “Sometimes, yeah.  That’s not unusual.”

James nodded, trying to give him time.  Nobody else would answer his questions (there wasn’t anyone else  _to_  answer his questions, really, seeing as Paulie still tried to avoid telling him  _anything_ ) and he didn’t want to push for too much too fast.

(He also was loathe to ruin the moment, and only part of that was because he knew how much pack interaction meant to Rich, and how much he lacked it.)

There was more shifting behind him, the bed jostling under the movement as Rich pulled James tighter against his chest, this time wrapping his lower arm up over James’s chest until his palm rested over his heart while his other arm stayed cinched around his waist.  He could both hear and feel the other man’s nose pressed behind his ear, snuffling softly.  He tried to keep his voice soft as he asked, “And…this?”

Rich froze, his entire body stiffening abruptly, and James was suddenly terrified that he’d ruined everything, this fragile whatever-it-was that they’d been nurturing in the brief moments they’d found themselves in the same city since Rich had left for the Admirals.  It was only his first real night back in Nashville since Milwaukee’s season had come to a close, and James had already ruined it, and maybe their friendship-

There was a soft growl directly in his ear before two nipping bites in quick succession, one to his ear and the other against the side of his neck.  James failed to suppress his yelp of surprise even as Rich murmured, “Calm down.  Don’t – don’t get yourself all worked up like that, okay?  It’s not – you’re okay, and I’m okay, we’re all okay, so there’s no reason for you to be upset.”

It wasn’t just James’s imagination that he sounded a little anxious.

“Sorry.”

Rich groaned in mild frustration, tapping his forehead against James’s temple.  “You don’t need to apologize,” he said, so loud with his voice so close.  “I just…this part, with us.  It’s not…some of what we do is different, from what you would do with a regular pack member.”

James couldn’t help turning his head slowly to look back at Rich, catching his eyes before the other man could glance away.

“So then…who  _would_  you do this with?”

Rich held his gaze, brown eyes boring into his own, guarded and yet so vulnerable at the same time.  James was helpless to do more than stare back, mind blank and arrested by the expression in his eyes.  He didn’t know what Rich was looking for, but he seemed to find it, because he flashed a quicksilver smile and pressed another long, slow kiss to James’s temple before he settled in once again behind him, arms sliding back around him, his grip firm but gentle.

 “You know the answer, Jimmy,” he murmured into the skin of James’s shoulder.

There was a knot forming in James’s chest, tight around his heart and creeping up into his throat until he felt the urge to swallow against it, against the emotions trapped there.

He did know the answer.

He just wasn’t sure either of them could say it.

 “Yeah,” he whispered, voice hoarse as he slid a trembling hand down to rest on top of Rich’s over his stomach.  After a moment’s hesitation, Rich spread his hand and James wordlessly threaded their fingers together, squeezing tightly as the ball of emotions in his chest made it hard to breathe.

“Yeah. I know what you mean.”


	19. Sabres/Stars: Jhonas, Post-Trade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked how the traded Sabres packmembers were doing, post-trade.
> 
> 4/23/15

It made him cringe with guilt to even think about it, but it actually took Jhonas a while to start missing the pack.

Part of him had been expecting the trade with the way the season was going, the way the GM had been talking all along, but it had still hurt him viscerally, a punch to the chest to realize that suddenly, he was no longer a Buffalo Sabre.

 He was no longer part of the Sabres pack.

He had refused to let himself think about it too much, to consider the ramifications of that and what that meant for him, what all of the trades meant for his team – their team.  That wasn’t his team anymore. That wasn’t his pack.

Dallas had made it easy to keep his mind off of things, at first.  There was a new team to learn, one that was making a push for the playoffs and the sheer idea of it made excited knots twist up inside of Jhonas’s stomach because he’d only played one playoff game, one  _period_  of one playoff game as relief for Ryan and it was the last playoff game Buffalo had ever played, a lost cause before Jhonas even got in the net. And now there was talk of him possibly being a starter in the playoffs, if he played his cards right, and God, but that was an intoxicating thought, to go from last place to the possibility of being a playoff starter.

He hated to admit it later, but those thoughts of the playoffs kept him well-occupied.  He was distracted enough focusing on his new team and pack to think too much about what he’d left behind.  Dallas actually barely even  _had_  a pack, aside from a brightly-smiling Jason Demers who had told him on his first day, “It’s so awesome to have another wolf on the team, it’s been seriously weird after being with the Sharks for so long.”

Jason was one of those wolves who was comfortable in any situation.  He’d invited Jhonas over to spend the full moon with him (Jason wasn’t an alpha, but he didn’t seem too bothered by the lack of one either) and they spent it mixing their time between nearly breaking Jason’s furniture chasing each other around in their fur and sleeping in a heap on his bed.  It was different from the huge piles Jhonas had long since become accustomed to, and he perhaps nestled closer than he would have otherwise, but all in all it was a good experience, if a strange one.  It was a little like a dream, like spending time at summer camp except things never went back to “normal” and you had to adjust to this being your life now.

And when the Sabres came to town, they didn’t have an alpha either, but Jhonas couldn’t even look to see if they were coping as well as he and Jason were (he doubted it, but he hoped Mike would do a good job taking care of the pack) because he told himself, ruthlessly when necessary, that he couldn’t let himself get distracted.  He couldn’t let himself get heartsick over a pack that was no longer his and have that be the reason that he wasn’t trusted to play – or worse, that the team missed the playoffs.

And so he did his best to forget about the whole thing, to ignore what team he was watching and the looks he was sure he was getting.  He said hello to his former teammates before and after the game, trying not to wonder why none of the pack would come anywhere near him, and begged off hanging out that night with the accurate excuse of needing to get ready for the upcoming road trip.  Nobody really fought him on that front, and he tried not to think about that too hard either.

(The same had happened when the Stars had traveled to Winnipeg in February.  Jhonas told himself that it was because both teams were wrapped up in their own playoff standings, but he knew Drew’s attempts at following decorum by not immediately glomming onto former pack members so soon after separating from them probably played a large role in why neither he nor Mysey made any attempt to contact Jhonas while he was in town.)

 No, Jhonas did a fairly good job of refusing to think about the Sabres and his new pack predicament until the next full moon, when their playoff hopes had been statistically dashed and all Jhonas had to think about were his plans for next season.

 The full moon fell on a game night, an away game in Nashville, and Jhonas was doing a fantastic job of continuing to keep thoughts of his pack status at bay until he received a text from Goose asking if he wanted to spend the moon together.

All of the former members of the Sabres pack that he’d played against so far had given him a wide berth, seeming to respect his desire to forget pack dynamics for the time being and focus on his game.  Even Ryan and Pommer hadn’t said anything when they’d played each other, which was a true sign that Jhonas had to be giving off some serious “leave me alone” vibes.

But things were different for Goose.  Jhonas wasn’t sure quite  _what_  went on in Nashville but everyone knew it was not a pack situation you wanted to be a part of, and Goose had been right in the thick of it for years.  It had become second nature for him to hang out with the Sabres pack whenever they played each other, and it made sense that, seeing as he probably didn’t have anyone to spend the moon with, he’d naturally seek out an old pack member who was available.

Jhonas had only cursorily asked for Jason’s agreement, because he didn’t think it would be that big of a deal given their lack of real dynamics and Jason had agreed gamely to “spend the evening with the enemy,” so it had all seemed to be worked out nicely; everyone would spend the evening at Paul’s.

And it all  _was_  working nicely (especially after Jhonas got the win), until Goose said over the late dinner he’d insisted on making them (that they hadn’t been quick to turn down), “So what’s been up with Buffalo lately?”

 And they all knew well enough to know he wasn’t talking about the team.

 Jhonas shrugged.  “I don’t know what you mean.  I haven’t really talked to them in a while.”

At this Paul reared back, his face a picture of shocked puzzlement.  “You’re kidding, right?”

It was starting to feel uncomfortable to say so, especially with Jason watching with interest, but Jhonas looked down at his spaghetti and said, “We were busy trying to get into the playoffs; none of them really tried to talk to me much anyway.  I figured we were all just too busy right now.”

He didn’t add that he’d been trying not to think of them at all.

A sudden thought struck him that gave him pause.

“Why do you ask?”

At this Goose shifted in that uncomfortable way he never used to have before coming to Nashville and shot a look at Jason before saying in a too-light voice, “Just, uh, some things I noticed when they came to town a few weeks ago.” He looked at Jhonas for a long moment before saying, “You really don’t know.”

“What am I supposed to know?” Jhonas asked carefully. He wasn’t sure he wanted the answer, because it felt like a belt was slowly tightening around his chest.

Goose looked at Jason again, seemed to decide that he would have to have this conversation in front of him anyway, and said, “Something’s really wrong there.”

The belt got a little tighter.

“What now?” he asked, trying to make it a joke.  The expression on Goose’s face made whatever smile had tried to grow falter miserably.

“They’re…look, I only know what I saw, but when I asked if they wanted to get together, Webby looked like he was going to puke and made up some obviously bullshit excuse about needing to go to bed early, and Tyler looked like he wanted to say something, and then like he wanted to cry. I couldn’t even  _find_  Marcus and he wouldn’t respond to my texts.  And I don’t really know any of the kids well enough to talk to them, but they didn’t look like they were in good shape.”

He paused and stared at Jhonas in confusion.  “You played them next.  Are you seriously saying you didn’t notice?”

Jhonas could only shrug uncomfortably, trying to notice how Jason watched the whole thing like it was a spectator sport.  “I wasn’t paying attention, I guess.”

The silence that fell next was far too awkward for anyone’s liking, but it was Jason to break it, standing up and saying, “Well, I don’t know about you guys but I’m about to jump out of my skin here,” before he promptly began disrobing, right there at the table.  It was distracting enough that they were able to get past the discomfort and the night continued on mostly as planned.

But Jhonas couldn’t get it out of his head, no matter how much he tried.  The guilt was a real and visceral thing, sitting deep and dark in his chest where the belt had begun to cinch tight.  He  _hadn’t_  noticed anything out of the norm with his old pack, because he’d done everything in his power to ignore them in favor of his own fortune.  And he’d been trying to forget they existed, telling himself it was for the best for everyone.  They needed to acclimate to life on their own, after all.  They couldn’t act like nothing had changed.

But it sounded like  _everything_  had changed, and the thought made Jhonas’s skin crawl in a manner that had nothing to do with the moon set high above them.

It ate at him, as Dallas played out their final games of the season.  It sat in his mind and gnawed at the edge of his thoughts, that something was wrong with his pack  _but it wasn’t his pack_  but he should check on them, just in case.  He should make sure they were okay.  Of course they were okay.

They weren’t okay.

He returned to Buffalo for the first time after locker cleanout day in Dallas.  He still had a home there (more of a home than his quickly leased apartment) and no matter where he ended up next year, he would have to do something about that.

If he perhaps returned to Buffalo more quickly than was strictly necessary (he told himself that it was because he was leaving for Sweden soon to practice for Worlds, but that wasn’t entirely true and he knew it), nobody was there to comment on it.

It bothered him how…empty things felt, back home. He had only been there for twenty four hours, but it felt like a lifetime.  He’d lived alone for years, but there was an air of quiet finality in Jhonas’s house – a finality to the emptiness, informing him that it wouldn’t be filled.

He resolutely ignored it and instead steeled himself to see about contacting whatever pack members were still in Buffalo. He knew some of the cubs were in Rochester, but most of the guys would probably still be around this close to the end of the season.

It was never even a question of who he’d decide to check up on first.  After all, if anyone could give him an understanding of what was going on with the team, it would be Mike.

(He tried to ignore the part of him that loudly said that he didn’t just want to see Mike right away because of the pack.)

Mike didn’t answer his door right away, though Jhonas knew from his car in the driveway that he had to be home.  That instead left him to relive the stark memories of the last time he’d been here, late in the afternoon on his way to the airport, leaving a box with his brand new Sabres mask on the porch in lieu of a goodbye.

He and Mike had never spoken about that, because they hadn’t spoken at all since the trade.

Jhonas tried to tell himself that there was nothing abnormal about that.  It didn’t work.

He could tell that Mike didn’t stop to see who it was before he opened the door, because otherwise he wouldn’t have opened the door only for his face to immediately blanch, color draining from it like he’d seen a ghost.

What Jhonas noticed the first about him, after his look of horror, was his scent, or rather, the lack thereof.  Mike had always had a strong scent, thick with pine trees and campfire smoke and something that smelled vaguely of ozone, like the earth after a hard rain, all underlain (or even overlaid at times) with the steady scent of the pack.

Now, he smelled nearly blank, sterile.  He barely smelled like a wolf at all.

Jhonas felt like being sick.

“Hi,” he said softly, eyes wide and all of his words escaping him at once.  That wouldn’t have mattered, before, because they used to be so close that Jhonas could just walk into Mike’s home unannounced, track him down and tuck himself in under his arm on the couch and not have to say anything about it for hours if he wanted to.

Now, he couldn’t even get over the doorstep without a full explanation, and that hurt like an open wound, as he began to realize the magnitude of just what, exactly, had changed.

Because it was everything.  Everything was different, was wrong.  Mike smelled wrong, the look of horror and distrust on his face was wrong, and the way he muttered, “What are you doing here?” in quiet, utter confusion, his eyes guarded, doing his damndest to keep Jhonas from seeing what was going on behind them – all of that was so, so wrong, and Jhonas wanted to scream from it.

“I – I’ve missed you,” he said, stuttering in a way he never had before around words that felt like ash on his tongue, lies burning up before they even left his mouth.  He would have missed Mike, had he let himself consider the fact that he was in Dallas and Mike was not, but he’d worked so hard to forget his old pack, if only for the time being, that it appeared he’d been too successful.  He hadn’t missed Mike enough.

And now he missed him like he had a gaping hole in his chest, gnawing and achingly huge and he couldn’t help pleading with his eyes for Mike to make this better, to make it stop being awkward when it had no right to be because they were  _never_  awkward with each other, never.  Jhonas may have been the one the Sabres had relied on to pull them through games by sheer will, but Mike was the steady presence who never wavered.  He was Jhonas’s rock, the one who grounded him when his moods became too mercurial, when his frustration got the better of him.  Mike took endless abuse on the ice, stood firm for the team and still had it in him to find Jhonas after a game and make sure he knew that nobody blamed him, that losses were the same team efforts as wins.  Mike took better care of Jhonas sometimes than he did himself.

And now he didn’t appear to be taking care of anybody, including himself.  The look in his eyes turned nearly hunted, and tired, so tired, as he shook his head and said, “No.”

That one word kicked Jhonas’s breath out of his chest.

“I – I’m sorry, I-”

“No,” Mike said again, shaking his head, and his voice wavered in a way Jhonas had never heard before.  He had the faint scent of moss, with undertones of the ozone and saltwater that accompanied a hurricane.  “No, I can’t do this again.  Not – not now, no.”

The belt that had wound its way around Jhonas’s chest that night in Nashville pulled tighter and tighter with every word, until he was gasping out, “What do you mean,  _no_? You can’t just – the  _pack_ , what’s going on with the pack?”

It was suddenly so desperate that he know, so imperative that he figure out why Mike’s scent was so weak, why he couldn’t smell the pack at all through the open door of Mike’s house when the pack scent should always be strongest with their alpha, why Mike flinched from him like he hadn’t been near another wolf in a long time.  They key to fixing whatever was wrong with Mike was connected to whatever was wrong with the pack.

But Mike was shaking his head again, slow and then increasingly faster as he said, “There isn’t a pack.”

This time, the air didn’t whoosh out of Jhonas’s chest, but rather he forgot how to breathe all together.

“Wh-what?  What are you talking about?  Of course there’s a pack-”

Mike was still shaking his head, and his voice grew stronger as he said, “No. There’s not. We don’t – there’s not a pack here anymore.  We aren’t a pack. We’re nothing.”

“How could you not be – Webby, of course you’re a pack!”

His voice was less confident than he’d wanted, and more…scared.  Terrified, actually, because Mike’s words sounded utterly foreign and incomprehensible and yet in the context of the unfolding situation, they made so much sense.

Mike didn’t smell like the pack because there wasn’t a pack to smell like.  The pack wouldn’t meet up with Goose because there wasn’t a pack to be had. And nobody had said anything because there wasn’t anything left to talk about.

This time, Jhonas nearly was sick.  “Please, can I come in?” he asked, voice wavering painfully. “I just want to…we can talk about this, about what happened, and figure out what to do-”

But Mike was already shaking his head, the movement stealing the words right out of Jhonas’s mouth. “No.  I can’t – I can’t do this again, Jhony.  I can’t.”

His voice broke on the last words, and something in Jhonas’s chest broke too, splintered and fell to pieces, because this felt like more of an ending than the trade ever could.

“What are you saying?” he asked, not really wanting an answer but needing to say  _something_.

Mike’s scent was faded and his eyes were wet and his voice trembled when he said, “I need you leave me alone.  I need you to leave.”

The first time that Jhonas truly realized the ramifications of the trade and what it all meant was in that moment on Mike’s doorstep, a place where he was no longer welcome, being told that Mike didn’t want him in his life anymore because they weren’t pack, because there wasn’t a pack to be had.  That was when he realized just what he’d lost – what they’d all lost, surely, but what  _he_  had lost when he’d placed his new mask in a box and left it for Mike as a parting gift, everything they’d had stuffed into that box and handed back to Mike as if to let him know that he didn’t want it anymore, didn’t need it, not when he was moving on to something  _better_.

He’d lost something irreplaceable, something uniquely  _theirs_ , not because of a trade, but because he’d abandoned it on his way out.

And after that, Mike had lost everything else.

And when Mike closed the door and the first tears threatened to burn tracks over his cheeks, Jhonas realized that the truth was that he’d lost Mike two months ago.  He just hadn’t realized it until now.

The belt binding his chest broke loose, but that didn’t matter, because Jhonas couldn’t remember how to breathe around the ache in his heart anyway.


	20. Panthers: Willie & Aaron, End-of-Season

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompted: How does Willie handle that he has to give up his pup for the summer
> 
> 5/5/15

“So you’ve got all of your gear, right?  You’ve got your phone charger?  What about a coat, it’s going to be colder up there than it is here, you’re going to want a coat-”

“Willie!” Aaron interrupted, holding his hands up as if to ward off more of his alpha’s questions and bad habit of attempting to loom over him. “First of all, it’s like, 15 or something in Windsor right now, it’s getting pretty warm-”

“You call  _that_  pretty warm?”

 Aaron leveled him an unimpressed look.  “You’ve been living in tropical places for too long. It’s  _very_  warm compared to what it has been there, and besides, I’ve got all the coats I could need at home if I do need one.  And  _second_ ,  _Dad_ , you don’t need to get so worried.  I’m going home, there’s literally no safer place I could be.”

He could tell from the look on Willie’s face and the way he crossed his arms almost belligerently that he expressly disagreed but was attempting to be too polite to say so.  Aaron rolled his eyes.

“Are you serious?  I’m going back to my family pack, my aunt is the alpha, everything’s safe with extra safe on top.  Actually, they think that if anything being  _here_  is more dangerous for me-”

“ _What?_ ” Willie’s voice did a great approximation on what Aaron would have called a yelp if it wouldn’t have made Willie pout at him.  “I’m your alpha!”

The tacit “and I could therefore never hurt you” was obvious in his statement, and Aaron refrained from pointing out the more than one pack in the NHL where some of the wolves seemed to outright fear their alphas.

“ _I_  know that, but I mean, in their eyes, you’re a foreign alpha that they really don’t know and I’m far away from where they could help me if something went wrong, so…” Aaron trailed off and shrugged. “It’s nothing personal; I mean, it’s literally how you’re reacting right now and they’re my  _family_ , so imagine how they’d feel about you.”

He could tell that Willie didn’t like that answer, but also that he couldn’t really argue with it.  Apparently unable to continue protesting without somehow insulting Aaron’s family, Willie instead opted for continuing what he’d been doing for the last two days straight and fussed over Aaron, tugging at his clothes in a vain attempt to straighten a polo that couldn’t have been straighter if he’d starched it.

“I’m just worried about you, okay?” Willie grumbled, refusing to look at Aaron directly even as he fidgeted with Aaron’s collar in what was an obvious excuse for leaning in to better scent him.  “You’re my first cub, and you’re going to be spending the entire summer on the opposite end of the country where I can’t come get you right away if something goes wrong.  I don’t like that.  I don’t like…anything could happen and I wouldn’t be there to protect you.”

And well, Aaron may have been mature for his age in some aspects, but Willie’s words made something young and fluffy and highly pup-like in his chest want to roll over and bask in the warmth of his alpha’s concern. He did some fidgeting of his own, feeling his face flush lightly under his tan.

 “I won’t really need protection,” he mumbled, leaning into Willie’s hands and then slumping fully against the other man’s chest when he gave up his pretenses of fixing Aaron’s shirt and instead tugged him into his arms, burying his nose against the side of Aaron’s head.  “I mean, Windsor’s pretty safe, and my pack back home will look out for me.”

“Yeah, but if something went wrong-”

“And besides,  _if_  something happened, I could always just call you up and you’d be there within the day, right?”

He didn’t comment when Willie was perhaps too quick to respond, “Of course, yes,” one hand tightening in the back of Aaron’s shirt and the other wrapped around the back of Aaron’s neck, forcing his face against Willie’s chest.  Aaron sighed and rubbed his face against the neckline of Willie’s t-shirt, ignoring how the angle strained his neck because this might be the last time he’d get to do this for a while and he wanted to keep his alpha’s scent in his mind for as long as possible.

“So I’d be safe, then. My family would help me take care of anything immediate and you’d come get me if something went really bad. And besides, it’s not like I won’t be calling and texting you all the time anyway.  I promise I won’t be without my phone for long, so you’ll always be able to reach me if you get worried.”

“Valid points,” Willie mumbled weakly against Aaron’s head.

“ _And_  it’s always a possibility that I could come visit you in BC, right?  You could show me all of that ‘island life’ crap you’re always going on about.”

“It’s not  _crap_.” Willie leaned back so he could pout properly at Aaron, but Aaron could tell that he was obviously taken with the idea immediately from the newfound light in his eyes. “And I’ll prove it to you.  I’ll take you out on my boat back home and we’ll go fishing and we’ll have a cookout and you’ll see exactly why I talk about it so much.”

“That sounds literally exactly like what we do here.”

Willie was already shaking his head. “It’s literally another ocean in another country, it’s  _completely_ different.”

“It’s a little bit the same, come on.”

“This is exactly why you need to come stay with me.” Willie spoke like it was fact now that Aaron would come visit him, like he’d come up with the idea himself.  “You’re a fishing heathen and you need to learn some respect.”

“Mhmm,” Aaron mumbled into his shoulder, making no attempts to hide that his nose was buried against Willie’s neck, inhaling deeply. “I’m awful.”

Willie was quiet for a moment, stroking a hand over the back of Aaron’s head and down his neck, pausing at the edges of his hairline.

“Eh,” he said quietly, “I guess you’re not that bad.”

He then just held Aaron for a few moments, both of them taking their time to memorize the other’s scent and finding comfort in it, trying to get what they needed from this to last them through the summer months until they saw each other again.

And then Willie completely ruined it by saying against Aaron’s hunched neck, “You have your passport, right?  And you packed some snacks in your bag, because you don’t like most of the airline food and-”

 “Oh my  _God_ ,” Aaron groaned, dropping his forehead against Willie’s shoulder in defeat.

“What? I just want to make sure you don’t forget anything!  Oh, that reminds me, I put one of my sweatshirts in your carry-on because the air conditioning there always makes you cold, and besides, it smells like me so you’ll be able to sleep better.  And I put some travel sickness pills in there too just in case you start to feel nauseous-”

Aaron had the feeling that he’d be hearing so much from Willie this summer that he’d have a very hard time remembering to miss him. He was looking forward to it.


	21. Predators: Weber/Josi III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> totearup prompted: Weber/Josi 3. “Please don’t leave.”
> 
> 6/8/15

“You know you can tell me things,” Roman announced abruptly one night when they were slumped together on Shea’s couch.  Shea cast him a sideways glance and paused the movie neither of them had really been paying attention to.

“Yeah…?”

Roman fidgeted in his seat, warm and vaguely frenetic against Shea’s side in a manner that was worryingly uncharacteristic. “So, I mean, if you had something important to tell me, you could do it.  You could tell me, I mean.  I’m trustworthy.”

The look he sent Shea was so beseeching that Shea would have teased him for it had it not also been abnormally earnest.

“I know that…” Shea trailed off, the long expectant pause at the end of his words turning his statement into a question.

“What I’m saying is,” Roman addressed the couch, looking uncomfortable in his own skin in a way that he never was. “When you always end up whispering with – with Cody, you could tell me those things too. Because we’re –  _friends_ , and you can trust me with important things. Because, I mean, Cody’s your friend, and so am I, so…” His words petered to a halt as they became progressively quieter, and his quick glances up at Shea took on an increasingly nervous air as Shea still failed to reply.

Shea suddenly had a feeling he knew what this might be about.  And he knew it wasn’t something he would ever be able to discuss with Roman, no matter how badly he wanted to tell him.

Instead, he plastered on a smirk he didn’t feel and said, “Jose, you’re not  _jealous_ , are you?”

Roman flushed a distracting shade of red that would have been extremely interesting had it not been accompanied with embarrassed-turned-angered words.  “ _No_ , what the hell, why would I be  _jealous_?  I do have a life outside of you, you know.”

The words sounded weak to both of them but neither was going to remark on it when they were both too busy shifting around uncomfortably and making only fleeting eye contact.

And no matter how badly Shea didn’t want to make Roman feel even worse, upsetting him into being put off the subject for good would in the long run be better for him than letting any suspicions start to linger and grow.

“You’re the one who’s so worried about what I tell Cody.”

“Only because you’ve been attached to him at the hip-”

“I can’t be excited to have a close friend come back?”

Roman sat up straighter, his eyes intent.  It was amazing how easy it was to see that his hackles were up considering that only one of them was a wolf, and it wasn’t Roman. “You can do whatever you want,” Roman grated out, “I was just trying to say,  _if_  you had things to talk about, you could talk about them with me.  That doesn’t mean I really  _want_  to talk to you, especially not when you’re being an asshole like this.”

Shea could see the entire situation spiraling out of his control as he did too good of a job of hitting all of Roman’s buttons and embarrassments, all while Roman became increasingly frustrated.

And yet, this was better, for his sake.  He and Cody had both agreed that telling a human was a dangerous idea, one that had to be well thought-out – it only took telling one wrong person to tear your entire life apart, and put the lives of your family and friends at risk as well.

But Shea was apparently already putting his friendships at risk, because if Roman’s emotional reaction meant anything, he was definitely more invested in this conversation that normal.  This meant a lot to him.

It meant a lot to Shea too.  But that wasn’t a good thing.  It wasn’t safe for either of them.  That meant Shea had to do something about it.

“Well, maybe I don’t want to talk to you.”

Roman’s face fell blank for a moment, eyes wide and mouth slightly parted in stunned silence as if he’d been slapped.  Then there was a flash of hurt, vulnerable and enough to make something in Shea’s chest twist painfully in regret, and the feeling only increased as Roman’s expression shuttered, anger sliding in to cover up the hurt as he stood, muscles tense, and said, “Forget it, it was just a suggestion.  I was trying to be nice.  You know, like a friend? Because we’re  _friends_?”

He paused like he was waiting for Shea’s rebuttal, for his argument, and normally, Shea would have joined right in and engaged him. But Shea wasn’t actually mad, didn’t actually want to be fighting this fight, and so he remained silent, waiting for Roman to continue.

The lack of response obviously surprised Roman, who shifted uncomfortably and swallowed, looking away for a moment.  When he looked back and spoke again, his voice was lowered, small.

“You know what, never mind.  I’m gonna go home.  Text me when you want to stop being an asshole for no reason.  Or you know what, don’t.  It’s probably not possible anyway.“

And okay, yeah, that one stung in a way that it never would have with anyone else.  But Roman was hurt and angry, and that was because of  _Shea_ , and Shea had never seen him like this before.  He hadn’t known how Roman reacted when he felt like this.

He didn’t like knowing now.

The vise grip in his chest became even more uncomfortable as Roman left the room and the sounds of him shoving his feet into his shoes drifted down the hallway.  Shea’s heart leapt in his chest and inside he could feel himself – the wolf – pacing, whining and unhappy and telling him to go after Roman, and he was leaning forward to stand up before he remembered his knee.

He sat back again, cursing his injury for the fiftieth time today and debating his options.  He could let Roman go the way he was supposed to; he’d get over this, this whatever-it-was eventually, probably within a few days, but Shea was quickly finding it impossible to even imagine a few days of Roman upset with him, especially over something like this that would undoubtedly come up again – or it wouldn’t, but it would always be in the back of Roman’s mind, thinking about how Shea effectively rejected him for no reason other than that he obviously didn’t want to be as close to Roman as Roman had thought they were, and that was equally undesirable.

His other option was to get up and try to go after Roman, to stop him and maybe not tell him the full truth, but tell him  _something_ , let him in just enough that he understood what their friendship meant to Shea but didn’t get any of the more dangerous information. (Or he could tell Roman the truth, but that option terrified him so thoroughly that it immediately ceased being an option as soon as the thought occurred to Shea.  He couldn’t deal with that, trying to explain to Roman whatever the hell was going on with what was ostensibly his pack in Nashville, having to tell Roman about Ryan’s departure, to see that godforsaken pity in Roman’s eyes too.  He would rather live a lie for the rest of his life and hold onto Roman’s friendship than tell him the truth and risk losing it.)

That was quickly becoming his only available option, except that he physically couldn’t get up and follow Roman, and time was of the essence as he heard the sounds of his front door opening, sudden and loud as if it had been yanked.

Shea grimaced, steeled himself, and called out, “Roman, wait!”

The leaving sounds ceased, but he could still hear birds through the open door; Roman must have paused in it.

He held back a frustrated huff and continued, “Could you not – please – I can’t come over there and – just let me explain,  _please_.  Please don’t leave.”

There was a long silence, and then the door shut. The silence then continued, and Shea swallowed against the mournful, piteous barks and whines clawing at his throat, urging him to call out for his – his  _other_  to come back, please, don’t leave him, he was sorry, he was, dumb,  _please_ -

And then, the soft but swift steps that were so characteristic of Roman, echoing against the hallway’s tile in the silence of the house. Another moment and Roman reappeared in the doorway, his keys clutched in one hand as his arms were crossed over his chest.  His eyes were guarded and obviously upset. Shea’s chest tightened and loosened at the same time and he held himself sharply in check to keep from whining apologetically to get Roman to stop looking like that.  This whole thing had been such a stupid mistake.

(Their whole…relationship, whatever this was, was supposed to be a mistake too, but he was having a harder and harder time believing that.)

“What?” Roman’s voice seemed too loud when Shea was nearly holding his breath.

He swallowed and tried to drag some air back into his lungs before saying quietly, his chagrined tone unavoidable, “You’re right, I…I’m being an idiot.”

“You are,” Roman cut in before he could continue. “You usually are but this is special, even for you.”

Shea grimaced but nodded.  He probably deserved that after his behavior of late.

“I’m – I’m sorry.  I’m not trying to be, I promise.”

“It just comes naturally?” This time Roman’s voice wasn’t happy, was still irritated and his face was guarded, but he seemed a little less tense.

“Yeah.” Shea huffed a laugh. Close enough. “Pretty much, I guess.  But I, uh.  I really do trust you, Rome.  I promise. I’m really bad at showing it, but you’re – you’re pretty much my best friend, you know?  You’re – important to me.”

Roman watched him uncharacteristically stoically, posture stiff even as it slouched against the entranceway.  But Shea could see him swallow heavily even as his fingers dug into his crossed arms.  “You have a piss-poor way of showing it,” Roman muttered quietly.

It wasn’t the best thing to hear, but Shea knew it was true.  “You’re right, I do – and yeah, this is me admitting you’re right and I’m wrong, you can enjoy it. But, Rome, seriously, I – you’re just as important to me as Cody, and you’ve been here with me for longer, so it’s like-”

He cut himself off abruptly.  Some secrets were less dangerous to share than others, but it didn’t mean that that Shea wanted to divulge them just yet.

The spark in Roman’s eyes showed that his curiosity had been piqued, but he thankfully refrained from asking for an explanation for Shea’s words, which was likely an effect of playing with Shea long enough that he recognized a lost cause when he saw it.

“I could tell you things,” Shea finished lamely. “If that’s, if that’s what you want.”

Roman shook his head, but less in rejection and more exasperation.  “This isn’t just about you telling me your secrets or something,” he said, and wow, Shea knew it was just an expression but the words made his heart leap into his throat in the worst way.  “It’s about – it’s about trust.”

“I  _do_  trust you, I just said so!”

“Yeah, after I was about to leave.  That’s not exactly promising, Shea.  God, I just wanted to…you don’t have to get weird about stuff with me, is what I’m saying.  I don’t  _need_  you to tell me anything, but I want you to understand that like, if something is going on in your life and you want to share it with someone, you can tell me.  You can trust me.  You don’t have to put everything on Cody all the time if you don’t want to, because he’s not the only guy on the team who you can trust.  Hell, every single guy out there has your back.  I just mean….”

This time Roman was the one to look pained as his words ceased, but Shea nodded in understanding.  “I know what you mean.  There’s a difference between team and-” He was about to say  _“-and us,”_  but the truth of the words struck a little too close to home.  From the look on his face, it seemed that Roman had heard the words loud and clear, physically silent or not.

“I know,” he said with a nod, and a distant part of Shea wondered how much Roman really did know – if he’d put the clues together, if he suspected.  He’d never let on before that he had, but Roman was a smart guy.  Shea wouldn’t put it past him to hold onto potentially useful information until it was of use to him.  At any rate, it felt like Roman understood what he’d meant.

“Of course there’s a difference.  We’re better looking.  Or at least I am.”

And Roman’s words took Shea by surprise, but they made him smile breathlessly all the same.  Roman came over to sit back down on the couch, further away from Shea than before, his hands to himself instead of an arm thrown up over the back of the couch, but he was looking at Shea and he smelled neutral, tentative maybe but no longer hurt or angry, and that was a start.

“I really am sorry,” Shea repeated, just in case. “I’ve been…kind of an ass lately, and not just since I got hurt.  There have been a lot of things going on the last few years, and you’ve stuck by me through all of it.  I think at this point I probably trust you more than anyone else in the world.”

And that scared him, to feel so viscerally that he could trust himself completely to a human.  But it also felt right.  It felt right that he should trust himself to Roman, spill his secrets and his soul and lay himself bare for Roman to look after.  Roman felt safe.

But then again, Ryan had also felt safe, and he was a wolf who could feel the effects of a mating bond.  So maybe Shea’s judgment wasn’t ideal.

Roman pressed his lips tightly together until they formed a thin line and leaned heavily against the couch, eyes downcast in thought for a pregnant moment before he exhaled in a whoosh and met Shea’s gaze. Tiredly he said, “I just want to help, you know?  I just want to, to be there for you.  To help.”

And Shea didn’t even think about it as he reached out to rest a hand on Roman’s knee and said, “I know, Rome.  And you do help.  More than you know.”

He didn’t expand on the reasoning behind that statement, but it didn’t matter, because Roman smiled tiredly at him, and Shea smiled tentatively in response, and the crisis of the hour was averted before Shea cut another of his ever dwindling ties.

He didn’t need a pack, but he needed Roman.  Even if Roman wasn’t the best option, or the safest, Shea knew inside that he would choose Roman every time, hands-down.  And when Roman put his hand on top of Shea’s on his knee and squeezed it gently, he knew he’d made the right choice.


	22. Predators: Weber/Josi IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> firalla11 prompted: Shea/Roman, 12. “I think we need to talk.”
> 
> 6/12/15

“I think we need to talk.”

Shea froze in place, hand hanging in mid-air as he stopped reaching for a beer from the fridge. Slowly he closed the door and turned to look at Roman with a guarded expression.

In his defense, the last time someone said that to him, Ryan was announcing that he was leaving him for Zach Parise and the Minnesota Wild. He was allowed to be a little wary of “needing to talk.”

“About?”

Roman had an unhappy look on his face, lips pressed together in a grim line that usually signified that he was steeling himself for something unpleasant.  It did nothing to quell Shea’s sudden nerves; his heartbeat ratcheted up another few notches and he could feel the hair on his neck stand up, the only raising of hackles he could do right now.

After a few false starts, Roman finally sighed, rubbed the back of his neck and met Shea’s eyes, saying, “The last few years, I’ve noticed that you’re… _different_  with different guys on the team.”

With a bland sort of sarcasm he didn’t really feel under the jackhammering of his heart, Shea said, “That would be because they’re different people.”

Roman obviously wasn’t amused.

“I think you know what I mean, Webs.  You know who I’m talking about.”

Shea  _did_  know who he was talking about, and he knew he didn’t want to talk about them. He didn’t even like  _thinking_  about them (or thinking about talking about them).  His best days were the days that he forgot they existed at all – or at least, he forgot that they were wolves.

(Some of the best moments for all of them were when Shea forgot that they were wolves and he’d hug them after a goal or tap their helmet and smack them on the ass after a great game, tell them what a good job they did, and it was just like he’d praise any other teammate until they smiled back at him, a little too bright, a little too pleased, their eyes much too surprised and nervous and delighted – and then he’d remember that they were different, that that kind of interaction meant different things for them, might make them think that he was accepting them as an alpha and not just as a captain, and that wouldn’t do at all, not when he was doing his level best to spend every season pretending that werewolves didn’t exist.)

And given how close Roman seemed to be getting to the truth – how close Roman was getting to  _Shea_  and how badly Shea wanted to tell him, felt like it would be  _safe_  to tell him, like Shea was ever really safe in relationships – well, it just seemed like a poor situation in general to even  _think_  of having conversations about things like this.

But Roman insisted on having them, because he could never just let sleeping dogs lie (Shea tried to ignore his mental note of how much Seth would enjoy that pun, if  _he_  knew the truth), especially not when it pertained to the team.  He was too good of a teammate like that.

Damn it.

And he knew it was no use being purposely obtuse, unless he wanted to start a fight that ultimately landed them nowhere.  It was a stall tactic at best with Roman, unless he just wanted to make himself miserable until he made amends.

Shea grimaced and looked somewhere past the vicinity of Roman’s left ear, not being able to quite meet his eyes anymore.

“I guess, yeah.”

Roman stared at him, eyebrows raised expectantly. “And?”

“And what?”

“And are you going to tell me why?”

“Tell you why  _what_?”

So maybe Shea was going to be a  _little_  obtuse.  It came naturally to him.

(Ryan used to call him bull-headed, but he’d say it with a smile, like it was something he liked about Shea.  Suddenly, stubborn petulance became a much less favorable option.)

Roman crossed his arms and his brows were furrowed together, his face clearly telegraphing that they were on their way to the exact fight that Shea had hoped to avoid.  Before Roman could open his mouth to call him on his bullshit, Shea held up a hand to stop him.  With a heavy sigh he said, “Wait, wait, I’m sorry, I know, I’m being an ass.”

“You are,” Roman agreed neutrally.  When no more information was forthcoming, his face softened a little and he said in a softer voice, “I just want to know what’s going on. The guys that you’re weird about, I can’t tell what they could have done to deserve it, and it obviously really bothers them that you don’t like them.  I don’t want anyone on our team feeling like, like they aren’t welcome because their captain for some reason wants to be rude to them.”

Shea blinked in confusion.  “I don’t  _hate_  them.”

That, at least, wasn’t a lie.  It had never crossed his mind to  _hate_  the other wolves on his team.  He had no problem with them as people or as players. He just hated that they were wolves.  He hated the reminder, what they represented. Honestly, it was a shame that they were wolves because otherwise they would all get along really well.

Roman’s expression of disbelief showed that he was less than impressed.

“You don’t.  You don’t hate them, you just openly ignore them in front of the rest of the team and don’t acknowledge them after games and glare at them like they personally set out to ruin your day in particular every time you see them. Because that’s not hating them.”

“It’s  _not_. It’s just…it’s nothing, they’re fine.”

“They’re  _not_  fine, and how the hell would you know?  You won’t even talk to them!  Every time you do, you’re either snapping at them, or you’re acting like talking to them is physically painful for you and you want to get away as soon as possible! And even when you forget you hate them and you treat them even a little normally, you start acting like a jackass again five minutes later!  You think they’re okay with that?  You think it doesn’t bother them that their captain treats them that way?”

The worst part was, Shea knew on some level that Roman was right.  Shea would never dream of treating his other teammates that way and would chew out anyone who did.  And if he thought about it enough, thought about it from the perspective of a captain looking after his team, he felt sick to his stomach with guilt over the way he acted towards – towards  _them_ , because he knew that they didn’t deserve his ire, that they hadn’t done anything wrong.

But most of the time, he didn’t view them as teammates. Humans were his teammates, and the others were wolves who happened to be on his team.  It was a distinction that his mind automatically, unconsciously made and one that he could never explain to Roman.  Roman wouldn’t understand why Shea didn’t want to be around wolves anymore, or even why he was still hurting from a breakup that was over two years ago. Roman undoubtedly thought a lot of Shea’s behavior was self-absorbed and childish, and if Shea looked at himself from a solely human perspective, it was.

But he wasn’t a human, no matter how hard he tried sometimes to ignore it, and it was impossible to see himself through any other pair of eyes when he and the wolf were innately the same.  He didn’t have a wolf “side,” something that could be turned on and off; the wolf was always there, under the surface, not another part of him but his literal self, instincts and fur and teeth shifting restlessly under human skin. Separating himself wholly from his instinctual reactions was impossible. And so he could feel guilt for his behavior when he tried to look at himself from a solely human perspective, but his natural reactions were to treat the others as wolves first and teammates later, and as wolves, he expected them to know better than to expect anything from him after all this time.

Telling Roman that, however, was never going to go down well.  He knew what he would have to say to avoid a fight and what would have to happen for him to get Roman to stop looking at him with so much disappointment.  It just wasn’t something that he ever saw actually happening.  He’d have to make some sort of concession, though.

“I know, I – trust me, I know.” He scrubbed a hand over his face and sighed again.

“Do you?”  Shea didn’t have to see Roman’s expression to know he was most assuredly not in a good mood.

“Yeah, I do.  I know that I – that I tend to treat some of the guys like shit, and I  _know_  they don’t deserve it.  I can’t just…look, I can’t really explain to you what it is that makes them different to me or why I treat them weirdly, but I’ll – I’ll try to be better to them.”

Refraining from glaring at them and ignoring them completely was better than how he currently treated them, so it wasn’t like he’d be  _lying_.

He was right that Roman wouldn’t really appreciate that answer, because he had a troubled look on his face as he asked, “But  _why_?  Why can’t you tell me? Webs –  _Shea_ , I’m not going to – I just want to help all of you, okay?  You can tell me.”  And his wounded look was like a knife to the heart as he said more quietly, “You said you would trust me with things.  You said you’d let me help.”

And  _shit_ , that wasn’t a conversation that Shea needed brought up again right now, not when it was too relevant and too close to the truth.

“I  _do_  trust you!” Shea insisted.  “I trust you, Rome, I just – this isn’t something I’m ready to talk about with anybody right now, okay?  It’s seriously not you, it’s me.  Trust me, if I felt ready to tell  _anybody_  about this, you’d be the first, okay? I just…I need a bit longer to work this out, okay?  Can I just have some time?”

He didn’t know what he’d do with that time, seeing as he couldn’t imagine a situation that would really change the status quo right now short of him being traded from the Predators (which was both a logistical improbability and the last thing he wanted), but a chance to prepare a response should this argument come up again would be greatly appreciated.

It was obvious to anyone with eyes that Roman wasn’t happy with any part of the situation and he obviously wanted to refuse and press for more information, but there must have been something in Shea’s face that gave him pause.  The desperation, maybe.  At any rate, he watched Shea silently for a moment before giving in with a weary nod that made Shea’s shoulders sag in relief.

“Fine.  I’ll stop asking – for now! – but you have to promise you’ll be better to them.  I want to know why you treat them so badly, but right now, I’ll settle for this.”

He was sporting a pair of sad puppy-dog eyes the likes of which could have rivaled Seth’s, and it wasn’t a hardship for Shea to come forward and wrap him in a tight hug, saying into his shoulder, “Thank you.  I’ll – I’ll be better.”

Roman took no time in returning the hug, his arms wrapping tightly around Shea’s back.  “And you’ll tell me the truth.” His voice was the stubborn kind of insistent that Shea loved when it wasn’t directed at him.

“I – I will, just – give me some time.”

“I will,” Roman agreed.  He pulled back from the hug, hands still resting on Shea’s sides, to look him in the eyes.  “But you have to promise.”

“I do.  I promise.”

Shea tried not to shiver under Roman’s close scrutiny. Roman then nodded and settled back in against Shea’s chest for another hug.  “Good.  I just want what’s best for the team.”

“Me too.”

And Shea really did want what was best for the team. He tried his damndest every day to be the best possible captain he could be just so he could do right by his team.

It was just a shame that what was best for Shea’s team wasn’t always the best for him.


	23. Predators: Dicky/Nealer III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> firalla11 prompted: 28. Hand holding
> 
> 6/15/15

James didn’t notice until it had been going on for a while.

In his defense, he was used to Rich being handsy with him.  It wasn’t unusual for him to be touching James: touching a hand to the small of his back as he leaned around him to grab something off the counter while James poked warily at what he was trying to cook on the stove; running a hand lazily over James’s hair as he walked past the couch, fingers pausing just long enough to scratch at his scalp; even going as far as to tangle the tips of his fingers in the bottom of James’s shirt or dip them into his pockets in public, just enough to keep him close.  And that wasn’t even counting how close he held James on nights when he starkly felt the pain of not having a real pack, spooned up behind him, one hand at James’s waist, the other pressed tightly against his chest, his face tucked neatly into James’s neck.

James was just really used to Rich touching him, okay? And it wasn’t like he minded.  He knew a lot of it had to do with Rich using him as a surrogate pack, overcompensating for the lack of contact with other wolves by using James as his sole outlet for physical touch, his movements more intimate than one would find between human friends but absolutely normal for a pair of packmates. And it was perhaps possible that his acceptance wasn’t wholly altruistic: he probably enjoyed the touching a bit more than normal packmates would, particularly ones who weren’t actually wolves themselves.

But with how normally tactile Rich was, it took James a long time to notice the new development.

It probably started with Rich’s tendency to hold onto James in public, guiding him closer by his pocket or belt loops, holding onto his shirt to follow him through a crowd.  With that as a normal occurrence, it wasn’t at all a stretch of the mind for it to be perfectly acceptable for Rich to reach out and wrap his hand around James’s wrist to get him to follow along at the grocery store when he wasn’t paying attention.  And then it wasn’t so strange for him to grab onto James’s hand when they made the mistake of going to the mall when some actor from a children’s show was making a scheduled appearance, because there were excited tweens and harried parents everywhere and it would be really easy to get separated if he didn’t have Rich’s warm hand around his, leading him through the crowd and to the relative safety of the food court.  And then it wasn’t weird for Rich to take hold of James’s hand when they were watching some slasher movie together, curling his fingers gently around James’s without his gaze ever leaving the screen, because he knew that the actual gore scenes made James kind of twitchy and that having someone to hold onto made him feel better.

And well, when Rich intertwined their fingers over James’s hip at night, that was perfectly normal.  They’d already been doing that all the time anyway.

And so the phenomenon slowly progressed until they found themselves on a plane with the rest of the team, a red-eye flight after a brutal loss, and James in his exhausted stupor abruptly realized that Rich’s hand was gently cradling his own, thumb swiping lazily back and forth over the back of his hand. He nearly twitched and pulled away out of reflex but resisted, abruptly fearful of what might happen if he did.

Rich might not try to hold his hand anymore.

That suddenly meant much more to him than ever before, as he paused to realize just how common an occurrence it had become in his life. Somehow, what had begun as a casual, occasional occurrence had become a staple in their daily routine.  Without him ever realizing it, Rich had been holding his hand pretty much every day: when they went to the store, when they rode on the bus or the plane, when James started getting too fidgety during dinner because he liked having something to occupy his hands but didn’t want to be rude by pulling out his phone.  It had happened so naturally, felt so normal, that he hadn’t even noticed it.

The strangest part was, he really didn’t mind that. He didn’t mind that Rich had done it, he didn’t mind that it was happening now, and he definitely didn’t mind it in the moment, with Rich holding onto him gently but firmly, nonrestrictive but comforting, reminding him that he was there.

It was…nice.

And he knew that if he brought it up to Rich, it would all stop.  Rich was the kind of guy who didn’t like to make big gestures, or rather, he didn’t like to be called on his big gestures.  He prided himself on being unflappable and low-key, and James knew him well enough at this point to know that if he asked Rich about the whole hand-holding thing, it would all abruptly stop because Rich would assume that James was saying something because the whole thing made him uncomfortable, which he was discovering was the farthest possible thing from the truth.

So when his hand did finally twitch and Rich’s eyes snapped open from where he’d been dozing off and Rich looked at him in concern and said lowly, “What’s wrong?”, his hand tightening and then slackening just barely around James’s own, James took it upon himself to squeeze Rich’s hand firmly, lacing their fingers fully together, and say with a smile, “Nothing. Everything’s fine.”

Rich looked at him oddly, a half-smile quirking his lips like he didn’t understand what the joke was but was just amused that James was amused, and he squeezed James’s hand once again in his own before drawing their joined palms up and pressing a quick kiss to their intertwined knuckles, murmuring, “Go to sleep, then, it’s a long flight.”

James just smiled back at him and said, “Yeah, okay,” before slumping down in his seat so he could lean his head against Rich’s shoulder and act like he couldn’t see the surprised, then delighted smile on Rich’s face. He squeezed their hands together once more and closed his eyes.


	24. Panthers/Canucks: Luongo/Lack II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompted: Could you please continue the Flanthers pack/ Lu and Eddie story!! Thank you!!!
> 
> 6/19/15

“So, I mean, I’ve been playing pretty great here – second highest scoring defenseman in the tournament and all that – and I think that means I deserve another story, eh?”

Jags nudged Aaron’s shoulder with his own from where they were sprawled on their stomachs on the bed in Jaromir’s hotel room. “I scored more than you, that means I get the story, no?”

“I’d say you’re right,” Lu began, smiling mischievously from his square on the computer screen while Aaron whined his protests, “Except that all of your points are for the Czechs and Aaron’s being a good Ontario boy for his country and that gets him bonus points.” 

“That’s not fair!” Jags complained even as Aaron cheered loudly next to him.  “Mitchie, tell him it’s not fair.”

Willie was smirking in his own square on the Skype call. “I’m sorry, but I’m a totally biased alpha in this one.  Aaron wins. Jags can have the story next time.”

Aaron was just the kind of obnoxious person who  _would_  fist pump right next to Jaro’s face.

“So what’s it gonna be, kid?” Lu asked, looking much too amused and pleased with himself.  Aaron made a great show of thinking about his response, even though he knew what it was going to be before he’d even brought it up.

“I want another story about you and Lack in Vancouver. Tell me about your first full moon together.”

Lu barked a laugh. “What are you, kid, some kind of a romantic?”

“Is this you admitting there  _is_  a romance there, then?”

Jags and Willie crowed with laughter and Lu scowled in mock-offense.  “I admit nothing.  Now if you want a story you’ll shut up and stop mocking the man who’s so generously sharing one with you.”

“Geeze Lu, you’re so  _sensitive_ ,” Willie tsked, obviously just to be irritating (Aaron knew he had the best alpha ever, but it was nice to get reminders once in a while).

“I am a man in touch with my emotions,” Lu sniffed, batting his lashes at the camera and drawing a laugh from the rest of them. “Now if you’re all good little boys, I’ll tell you a story.”

“Then I have already failed.” Jags made a show of hanging his head in shame.

“Okay, good little boys and good little Jagrs, then.”

“I meant because I was naughty.”

And Aaron really did want his story, but watching Jaro waggle his eyebrows like that was possibly worth missing a story for.

“Okay, good little cubs,  _naughty_  Jagrs and sunburned captains, is that acceptable?”

“I like the part where I’m still good, but continue.” Aaron gave Lu his best most beatific smile.  Lu rolled his eyes, but it was obvious that he was trying not to crack a smile too.

“ _So_ , if you guys will ever let me start, the first time Eddie spent the full moon with the pack was during his first training camp with the team.  We’d spent some time with the pack since camp had started, but it was the first time that we’d all be in our fur together…”

~~~

“Everything here is so  _pretty_!”

Lu was fairly sure by this point that Eddie had either ingested pure sunshine or pure meth, because there was no reason for any person to be that upbeat and enthusiastic after the day they’d had at camp. (It was fitness testing day. The twins had shown up everyone, again. Kevin had shown off in the pull-up test because he always did.  And Eddie had won the contest for best smile, which hadn’t been a contest until the trainers had seen him standing there, beaming like he absolutely lived for flexibility tests.)

(Lu felt a little bit like  _he_  lived for Eddie taking flexibility tests, or at least watching Eddie take said tests.)

He had to admit, though, that likely a good deal of the kid’s excess energy had to do with the full moon, which would be rising tonight.  It would be his first full moon in Vancouver and his first real introduction to life in the Canucks pack. So far he had met everybody, but had only really spent substantial time with Lu, sticking to his side like Lu was his alpha, which was so laughably untrue. Between the moon making him excitable and his own anxiety (eagerness?) about meeting the pack properly that night, Eddie was practically vibrating out of his skin.

Maybe literally, if he didn’t keep a better check on himself.  Maybe it would be better if Lu took him back to their room before things got too furry.

“I’m  _fine_ ,” Eddie insisted, as if Lu couldn’t feel the jittery tension in the muscles of his wrist under Lu’s hand as he chivvied Eddie down the hall to their shared room.  “I wasn’t gonna like, go all wolfy in front of the team.”

He was practically jumping up and down in place. Somehow, Lu didn’t believe him.

“Yeah, well, watching you bouncing around out there was making  _me_ anxious. So how about we have some quiet time here before you meet the pack tonight, so that they don’t end up sitting on you to keep you from jumping in their faces, huh?”

“I wouldn’t do that!” Eddie protested in the tone of someone who would totally probably end up doing that.

“Okay, then  _I_  want some quiet time and you’re going to keep me company.” He was hard-pressed not to smirk when naturally that made Eddie’s pout smooth into a pleased smile.  _Pups_.

“Now I don’t care if you change or not, but we’re going to lie down and be quiet for at least the next hour, okay?”

He didn’t even have to give Eddie any of the suggestions he’d been about to make, because Eddie was already stripping out of his clothes and diving onto the bed in his fur, settling his ridiculously lanky body directly over the pillows on  _Lu’s_  bed because of  _course_  he did. (He’d spent every night of camp so far in Lu’s bed, pressed up against his chest with his face buried against Lu’s neck like he wanted to crawl inside him for warmth, even when their hotel room was actually pretty stuffy and humid.  It was the move a young wolf would pull with an alpha when they were feeling either bratty and possessive or exceptionally needy.  Lu was starting to worry that Eddie honestly didn’t realize that Lu wasn’t the pack’s alpha – well, unless his behavior wasn’t supposed to be interpreted as that of a cub towards his alpha, and Lu wasn’t letting himself entertain any streams of thought like that, not when the pack had barely met Eddie and the twins were already sending him guarded, searching looks.)

Eddie wagged the tip of his fluffy blond tail in what he probably saw as an enticement to get Lu to join him.  With a put-upon sigh, Lu did so, shuffling into the space that Eddie quickly vacated against the pillows and resting against the headboard, one of his hands immediately finding Eddie’s head as it settled heavily in his lap and the other grabbing his book off the nightstand. Eddie huffed loudly and nuzzled his head against the side of Lu’s thigh, whuffling warmly against the crease of his knee before sighing again and settling in.

Good.

Now either the kid would wake up feeling calmer, or he’d be so jumpy with pent-up energy that he’d explode all over the pack in a puff of sandy-colored fur.  Cubs with Eddie’s energy were usually all-or-nothing like that.

Eddie thankfully did seem calmer when Lu nudged him to wake him up, yawning showily and licking at Lu’s hand in a way he knew would make Lu cave and scratch under his chin.

Little shit.

Lu tried not to watch too closely as Eddie’s long stretch led into a shift back into his human skin, complete with a lazy pull of the too-long expanse of his pale back far too close to Lu’s face for comfort. He very pointedly ignored how Eddie made no effort to remove his extremely naked body from Lu’s vicinity – and how the sharp grin that he could see out of the corner of his eye was less than the innocent pup he played himself to be.

(He was suddenly struck with the sudden feeling that he now understood what it was like to be hunted.  He was perhaps wrong about who was chasing whom in this situation.)

“So,” Eddie said, his voice closer than Lu had expected but thankfully not enough to make him jump (the last thing he needed was to flinch in front of his new backup).  “Where are we meeting the pack?”

He tried not to think about how warm Eddie was, how close.  He tried to remind himself that it wasn’t abnormal for a pack member to act like this, even if they were new. (Eddie was just a little forward.  Maybe some Swedes were like that.  He would have to ask the twins.)

Instead of acting on any of his thoughts, Lu said with a mellow calmness he absolutely didn’t feel, “Come on, put your clothes back on.  There’s a park near here where we meet up and they don’t appreciate nudists.”

“Can I say it’s a European thing?” Eddie waggled his eyebrows in a manner that would have been embarrassing if Lu’s current reaction to him wasn’t itself embarrassing.

“The police wouldn’t believe you.  The Sedins would never do that.”

“We’ll see.” The eyebrow thing truly was awful.  So was Eddie’s toothy grin that went with it.

Lu was really far too gone for this to be his real life.

~~~

They weren’t the first ones to the park, but they weren’t the last.  The twins were already there, both still in human form as they waited.  Jannik was nearby, already shifted and laying with his head on his paws, watching as Edler circled the twins, not too close or with any purpose but enough to get someone’s attention.  Daniel and Henrik, however, were too busy watching for newcomers to pay attention to him.

Eddie, while calmer than earlier in the afternoon, was now ready to start vibrating in place again (or maybe just out of his clothes) as the sun fell below the horizon and the moon became more visible. It was probably going to be an effort for him just to stay human long enough to make the most basic of formalities.

He at least proved that he  _did_  recognize that Lu wasn’t actually his alpha, because he immediately upon seeing the twins presented his neck to them – both of them.

Lu could see the approval in their smiles as they each took their turns scenting him.  The mixture of highly similar scents they gave off made it difficult for most wolves to realize that there wasn’t one alpha, but two.  Outside of the situation in Buffalo the last few years, Lu was fairly sure there weren’t any other packs with two alphas in the league. Certainly not ones that had done as well as the Canucks.  No matter what happened to the team, their pack was stronger than ever.

(Tanev walked silently past them, head down as he passed the alphas who paid him no mind as they began talking to Eddie in soft Swedish while Lu watched on.  He reached out a hand to Edler as he past him on his circle, running a hand across his ears before continuing on to a copse of trees where he could stash his clothes and change.  Around the same time Stanton entered the clearing from another direction, head down, and laid down a few yards from Jannik.  Nobody acknowledged him, and he didn’t look up.)

Seeing as he didn’t speak a lick of Swedish aside from selected epithets unfit for polite company, Lu had no idea what the twins said to Eddie, but from the way Daniel smiled wickedly and Eddie acquired an intriguing flush from his neck to his ears, he could imagine it wasn’t something too polite anyway. Eddie was still smiling though as he cleared his throat and said, “So can we go be wolves now?”

The twins both laughed and Eddie was directed to the same trees that Tanev was just now exiting as a chocolate brown wolf, his belongings now stored in one of the plastic totes they tried to store there. Lu tried not to watch too curiously over Hank’s shoulder while presenting his own neck to his alphas as Eddie reacted excitedly to Tanev, swooping down on his knees to wrap him in a long-armed hug; Tanev, for his part, appeared mildly surprised, standing still in shock before wagging his tail rapidly and licking at Eddie’s cheek, ears back and making the slightest of whining noises.  Eddie crooned something at him, scratching behind his ears, and pressing a huge, smacking kiss to the top of his head in a way that made Tanev’s tail wag even faster.

Lu blinked in surprise.  He’d forgotten that those two were friends from their time in the AHL.

(In his own distraction, he didn’t notice that every wolf in the clearing had their eyes pinned on Eddie and Tanev save for the twins, who were saying something that Lu didn’t fully hear.  Even Edler’s pacing slowed to a halt as he stood to watch the proceedings with his pale grey ears perked forwards.)

“I’m sorry, what?” he said as Hank’s warm palm landed on his shoulder, drawing his attention back to his softly smirking alphas in front of him.

“So he’s distracting for you, eh?” Hank said with a look that made even Lu want to blush.  He instead made a show of rolling his eyes, putting forth his trademark cool collectedness that the twins knew by now was as much for show as it was real.

“Have you ever had a tall naked Swede you’ve just met in your bed trying to cuddle with you?” he countered, only to see them start smirking again.

“We have played for Team Sweden at the Olympics before, so yes,” Danny said with a laugh lurking just under his voice.

“We have some cuddlers,” Hank agreed.

Lu was about to reply with a sarcastic retort about Eddie’s plans for nude Europeans when there was a loud barking from behind them right before Burr came barreling into the clearing, in his fur, tongue lolling out of his mouth and clearly not planning on slowing down as he instead bowled directly into Lu’s legs, knocking him into the twins who barely had the balance to hold themselves up but were all too willing to let Lu fall to the ground between them. Burr, for his part, then appeared completely content to gnaw cheerfully on the fabric of Lu’s shirt, because he was a little shit like that.  (Lu was lucky to have grown up with more Italian than French influences in his home.  He would rather avoid the Quebecois belief that an oral fixation was the best way to express your emotions, thanks much.)

“You’re really charming, you know that?” Lu informed Alex.  Alex, for his part, froze for a moment with the fabric of Lu’s t-shirt bunched in his mouth as if thinking it over before he wagged his tail furiously, released the shirt and instead set to work licking it with much more intensity than was actually warranted, as if to prove that he didn’t  _have_  to be chewing on it.

God, putting him around Eddie was going to be a bad idea.  They were going to be insufferable together.

As if on queue, the now-familiar lanky blond wolf came bounding over, tripping over his feet as he stumbled to an abrupt stop next to Lu, unsure if he was allowed to jump on the pile yet.  Hank reached out and scratched behind his ear before pushing gently between his shoulders, urging him to go ahead. Eddie did so, lowering his head in deference to Burr while Burr watched placidly from his position half on top of Lu’s chest.  Then suddenly Alex bounced up and tackled Eddie, rolling him over and settling heavily on top of his overturned belly, growling playfully as he started gnawing on the blond wolf’s leg.  Eddie, for his part, appeared to be loving it if his mischievous, twitching thrashes and lolling tongue meant anything.

With a quick glance at his alphas for their approval, Lu got up and left to change himself, before Burr got it in his head to come back over and make an actual hole in his shirt.  It wouldn’t be the first time.

As he walked towards the trees he looked back and saw Kevin approaching from the direction that Alex had come, holding a bundle of clothes that were obviously Alex’s.  He clapped the twins on their backs and said something Lu wasn’t going to bother focusing to hear as they both embraced him with smiles.

Edler had stopped pacing and instead was carefully approaching Tanev, who was watching Eddie and Burr with an unreadable posture. He twitched when Edler gently nudged his side before turning to press his nose into the grey wolf’s fur, snuffling softly before nipping his ear lightly and then nudging him towards Jannik, whom the pair settled about ten feet away from.

Kevin and the twins didn’t take long to join him in shifting, and after that, the they were quick to go  _properly_  introduce themselves to Eddie, which mostly consisted of a lot of sniffing and excessive grooming (Hank and Danny) and pinning him down and sitting on him just because they could (Kevin).  Eddie’s only reprieve from their own form of wolfy hazing was that Alex started nipping at Kevin’s tail as soon as he started flattening Eddie, because if there was one thing Burr loved, it was irritating Kevin. But otherwise, Lu was content to leave Eddie to suffer under the pack’s particular form of love.  Best he got used to it now, because they didn’t really get much better with age, especially not if Eddie was going to sit there and put up with it.  Though for his part, he seemed to be enjoying the attention.

(All eyes in the clearing were on the love-fest occurring around Eddie.  Well, most of them.  Tanev and Edler were huddled together under a tree; occasionally Edler would whine and move as if to join the group, closing about half of the distance between them before stopping, whining again, watching and then slinking back to press against Tanev. Jannik watched the whole thing with his head on his paws, not making any move to get closer or to join the other pair nearby.  And Stanton didn’t watch at all, but he didn’t usually like to watch anyway, the opposite of Edler’s obsessive vigil.  He was curled up on his own in a tight ball at the edge of the clearing, his nose tucked tightly into his tail; one would have thought he was sleeping had it not been for his ears that twitched with every new sound.)

Lu wasn’t the best at keeping track of time when he was in his fur, gauging it solely by the trail of the moon through the sky, but it was probably after about an hour of the pack crawling over each other (and later, him as well), nipping and tussling and in some cases aggressively grooming when Daniel suddenly stood and looked towards the woods; as in all things, it only took Henrik scant seconds to be in the same position as his brother, senses locked on to the same thing that the rest of them didn’t recognize until the wind shifted and blew the tantalizing scent in their direction.

Some rabbits had made a very poor decision tonight.

Most wolves had varying opinions on hunting; most any wolf would give chase to prey just for the sheer sport of it, but there were often cultural differences in who would actually go in for a kill – and who would eat it.  The Swedes, for the most part, had no qualms about eating their prey.  Kevin would chase anything that moved but refused to eat anything as a wolf that hadn’t come from a store. And Alex wouldn’t kill what he hunted, but didn’t take much persuasion to try eating it anyway once somebody else had done the deed.  As for Lu, seeing as rabbit hadn’t been off the menu as a human growing up, he had never seen a reason why he should avoid it as a wolf.

But even if they weren’t looking to eat, the real fun was in the chase.

They stood still, waiting to be given the signal, and then - the twins moved, and they were off.

Hunting with the pack was always one of Lu’s favorite parts of full moons. There was no better way to prove your worth to a pack, to truly bond and show your belonging, than to help in a hunt.  And it felt like hockey, to form strategies, to know where the others were going to be and to play your role as part of a team.

(He’d told Henrik that once, when they were all getting drunk after losing in the Finals, that hunting was wolf-hockey and that was why he’d loved it.  Hank had nodded solemnly and agreed, so Lu figured he wasn’t the only one who felt that way.)

Tonight, the focus of the hunt was as much on the prey as it was on watching Eddie.  True to form, Eddie worked like a cub, nearly tripping over his too-big paws as he ran, tongue hanging out of his mouth, but he darted with an agility that Lu wished he still felt, and he looked like he was enjoying himself immensely.  And when Kevin was the one to corner the rabbit up against a rock, Eddie ran around him yipping like he couldn’t be prouder. (The rabbit ended up getting away, because Kevin got distracted trying to pin Eddie to the ground, and then Burr wanted to join in the pile because if he wasn’t going to get to chew on some rabbit bones, he’d just have to chew on the new guy instead.)

(Tanev ended up catching the rabbit as it made for its escape, but the rest of the pack didn’t realize because they had already begun to move deeper into the woods.  He stood there, holding it limply between his jaws and watching them depart, before dropping it softly to the ground.  Edler, who was with him, had begun to follow the group (always trying to follow them) before he stopped, watched Tanev for a moment and then instead darted forward, nudging him to pick up the rabbit again and then leading him back towards the clearing.  When they arrived, it was to find that Jannik and Stanton were still there; Jannik had moved from his previous position to lie next to Stanton, pressing his nose into the other wolf’s fur and nuzzling at him, trying to get him to uncurl.  He looked over when the other two returned, watching them neutrally as they approached.

(Chris carefully stepped forward and placed the rabbit in front of Jannik, pausing for a moment before nudging it closer, his tail shifting about with just the mildest hint of hope.  He too then nuzzled at Stanton, licking over his cheek and his ear until he finally opened his eyes enough to see what was going on around him. When he uncurled he blinked at the rabbit in front of him as if it was a foreign offering, looking first to Tanev and Edler and then to Jannik for clues.  Tanev once again nudged it towards the pair, and this time Jannik licked his cheek for his troubles before leaning down and biting into the rabbit and then woofing softly at the other three.  That was all the signal they needed before the four carefully settled in next to each other at the edge of the clearing and tucked in, their own little island of a pack, bound together by being pushed apart.)

Lu completely lost track of time through the shadows of the trees that covered over the moon, but he probably spent hours running with the pack, spending no little amount of time watching Eddie interact with the pack when the wolf in question wasn’t trying to gang up on him with Burr and Kevin and bait him, nipping at his flanks and his tail like they were all actual cubs and Kevin and Burr weren’t actually two years younger than Lu himself.

It was when they finally returned to the clearing to settle in for the remainder of the moon that Eddie finally reattached himself to Lu’s side, pressing up against him as they walked and refusing to move away as they found places to settle down.  Though the pack was curling up together anyway, Eddie made a very obvious point of ensuring that he was pressed along Lu’s side, close enough to tuck his chin over Lu’s neck and blissfully ignoring the fact that Burr was falling asleep with the furry tuft of Eddie’s tail still in his mouth.  Lu would have begun falling asleep himself if Eddie didn’t then press his muzzle against Lu’s ear and choose to  _lick_  inside it.  Lu would have jumped up and sputtered and maybe tried to move away if Eddie wasn’t suddenly rolling on top of him, making happy grumbling noises as the press of his weight assured that it wasn’t going to be easy for Lu to move him off – at least, not after Hank pressed up against his other side and kept him from moving, and from he noises he was making it was pretty obvious he knew what he was doing.

Little Swedish shits.

So Eddie’s first moon with the pack was a rousing success all around; the pack was fairly enamored of him and even Lu was finding himself hard-pressed not to be even a little bit charmed by his antics.  And he wasn’t even going to address how at the end of it all, it was Lu who Eddie wanted to seek out to be close to.

Eddie may have known what he was doing, but so did Lu. This wasn’t his first rodeo.  He could resist a young wolf with a crush.

~~~

“Except you totally didn’t because he’s your  _boy-_ ”

“He’s not my  _anything-_ ”

“Because he’s your  _lover_ , yes.”

Lu hated that Aaron had gotten Jags on his side. It was really unfair to have the two of them ganging up on him like this.  And it was even more unfair that Mitchie just thought that everything his cub said or did was  _adorable_  and therefore would never side against him.

Really, Lu put up with so much crap from this pack.

“He’s not my  _anything_ ,” Lu corrected Jags, whose smirk blatantly stated how deeply he didn’t believe Lu.  Well too bad, because he was telling the truth.

“But you like him,” Aaron interjected with a knowing look he didn’t deserve to wear given that he was practically an infant. “You  _like-_ like him because you  _love_  him and you  _miss_  him and-”

“And you’re going to bed now,” Lu stated loudly.  He really hated webcams for denying him the ability to look meaningfully at Mitchie right now.  “Mitchell, control your cubs.”

“I’ll have you know I only have one cub-”

“Does Jags look like a mature adult to you?”

“I will have you know I am very mature,” Jags interjected, doing something wholly terrifying with his eyebrows that sent Aaron into fresh peals of laughter against his shoulder.

“Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, I’m seeing three cubs from where I’m sitting,” Willie said, and how was it that  _he_  could find a way to look meaningfully at Lu through the camera and not the other way around?

This pack,  _honestly_.  And Lu had  _wanted_  to come back to Florida.

If only he’d realized what he was getting himself into.

(He enjoyed his pack far too much to ever want to leave, if he was honest.)

“In that case,” Lu announced, “I think we should all go to bed.  Especially little World Champions in the making.  And Jagr.”

“I’m already a World Champion,” Jags said with a saccharine-sweet smile.

“Oh, you won’t mind when Canada wins gold, then,” Willie chirped with a smirk of his own.

Jaro’s theatrical squawk of protest was met with more laughter and bickering between the group, including insults about who was the oldest (for given variations of “old” that really meant “decrepit”) and Aaron’s status as the only one in the group without a gold from Worlds, and if Lu let himself get caught up in the laughter and the arguments and the sheer warmth of feeling so close to his pack even when they were all so many thousands of miles away, he could almost forget the one part of him that kept wondering if a certain wolf out there would ever really want to be known as  _his_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original end note: I have no clue if Lu has ever eaten rabbits IRL before but I know that my mom grew up in a largely Italian neighborhood in Ontario and some people on the street kept rabbits for cooking purposes so yeah, we’re gonna pretend that’s a thing he did. And Campbell isn’t here because he’s like, off having a real life with his family instead of Skyping these losers all day.


	25. Predators: Shea POV, 2015 Playoffs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompted: How is wolfy shea dealing with his injury and his pack breaking up since the season is over?
> 
> This is Shea's POV of some of the events in Truly.
> 
> 6/23/15

There’s this special sort of helpless feeling that you get when you’re forced to watch from the sidelines – or worse, on television from another state – as your team struggles without you, especially with the knowledge that you could have made a serious difference in the outcome of the game had you been there – that maybe they lost because you were stupid enough to get yourself injured.

Shea hadn’t really had many experiences with that particular emotion before, but then again, this was his first time getting injured as his team fought one of the top teams in the league to survive past the first round of the playoffs.

He quickly found that he didn’t care for it very much, and in fact probably hated it more than anything he’d hated in his life so far (and that was, some would argue, a lot of hatred given his history).

It was frustrating – no, infuriating, to be trapped on his couch, immobilized and alternatingly dizzy with painkillers or gritting his teeth in pain as he watched, powerless, as his team lost two games in a row, one being a painful, drawn-out loss in triple-overtime that exhausted Shea just watching it.

Game five had felt like hope – it was a 5-2 blowout after all, the Blackhawks seemingly hemorrhaging third period goals and Shea had been able to be there to witness it.  He had seen the guys in the locker room, skirting carefully to avoid bumping into him but with exhilarated smiles on their faces as they all crowded around Filip after his hat trick, punching him playfully and grabbing him up in their arms, because it felt once more like they had a chance.  They just had to win the next game, and the next. They could be upstarts.  They were good at that.

Roman had caught Shea’s eye that night, his smile wide enough that it looked like it might break his face, and Shea had been helpless to do anything but smile back.

It had been a long time since he’d felt that breathless gut-punch of butterflies at the sight of someone else’s smile directed towards him.  It was a good feeling.

He’d had to stay behind while the team travelled back to Chicago, and so he didn’t get to see anyone’s reactions to their final loss. But he got to watch it from his couch, shouting at the tv, half-tempted to cover his face at times but too frozen in focus on the action to do so.  He couldn’t bring himself to look away, not when the stakes were so high and his team was out there struggling without him.  He owed them that much.

So he saw their faces as Keith scored in the waning minutes of the third period, the looks of horror, of stark disappointment.  He saw them fight those last few heart-pounding minutes to stay alive, to tie the game, and he saw their faces when they couldn’t pull through.  Something in his chest was snarling as the Blackhawks all crowded around each other, screaming and hugging and  _happy_  while the camera panned to his teammates with their heads hung low, Pekka with his shoulders hunched, undoubtedly already telling himself all of the ways the loss was his fault because he had been the one to let in the final goal, and Shea was  _livid_.

It wasn’t right, for anyone to be so happy while his team (his  _pack_ , some guttural, base part of his instinct tried to argue) had just had its dreams crushed, and it  _especially_  wasn’t right that it was the Blackhawks who were allowed to be that happy.  It felt viscerally  _wrong_  and it made a low growl start in Shea’s chest, and it was perhaps a good thing that he wasn’t actually at the game because no small part of him honestly wanted to start a fight right now, to defend his team, to show that they deserved this just as much as any team if not more, that they had put in the work and the dedication and that this entire thing was disgusting and wrong and just not  _fair._

But he wasn’t at the game, and that wasn’t how hockey worked.  Every team who lost in the playoffs felt that way – that it was unfair, that they had worked harder, that they were more deserving – and it was obviously not a sentiment that they ever expressed, and for good reason: it would be exceptionally bad form to look like such a sore loser in front of national media.

Despite knowing that information all too well, though, Shea still couldn’t shake the feeling as he watched the post-game interviews with the ecstatic Blackhawks and his miserable team that if he was there, he could somehow protect them from all this, keep them close and make things better and bare his teeth at anyone who would dare to get close.

He knew what some wolves would say about this: that he was emotional and had a lot of pent up alpha instincts that hadn’t been put to much use this year other than when he directed them at his team, and that the best thing he could do was round up his pack when they got home, hide them away at his house where he could keep them safe, and tend to them and lick their wounds until they felt loved and cared for and understood that this wasn’t their fault and he felt like he hadn’t failed them for letting them lose.

Except there were some particular reasons that Shea hadn’t expressed many of his alpha instincts lately, and those reasons greatly pertained to the fact that he hadn’t wanted anything to do with any wolves who might attempt to consider themselves his pack in three years.   That made it rather difficult to enact any part of that plan, especially considering he hadn’t really had any plans to change his attitude towards the wolves on his team in the near future.

But his conscious mind and the latent feral instincts he could feel rising in his chest apparently hadn’t communicated very well, because he was there to meet his team when they arrived back in Nashville, and a good part of him was decidedly dedicated to trying to suss out the status of the wolves there.

He didn’t realize it at first, because he was mostly focused on checking in with the team as a whole – it didn’t matter how many of them tiredly chastised him for waiting around for them on his crutches, hugging him carefully while chiding that he should be sitting down, should have stayed home so they could visit him where he’d be comfortable, because it was important to him that he could do this one small thing for them, to greet them off the plane and let them know that he was proud of them, that they’d done well and he couldn’t have asked for a better team before packing them off to their girlfriends and families to be taken care of at home.  These were wounds that could only be healed with time, but it felt good to get a weary smile, a tight hug, and know how much it meant to his team that he wanted to be there for them.

He was wrapped up enough in this that it took him some time to notice that he had not been seeing much of the wolves, and in fact, that he hadn’t seen them at all.  When he scanned the group of guys milling around, collecting up their luggage, he realized that this was because none of them were going to approach him, some clustered off in groups of their own, others standing against human teammates, none of them looking at all in his direction, and he didn’t know why that surprised him.  On a normal day, he’d expect them to know better than to come to him for comfort or direction, and it made obvious sense that this would translate to the playoffs – he’d made it perfectly clear so far that nothing in their status quo would be changing just because they were in the postseason.

And yet it made his heart clench in his chest, a tight ball of emotion forming at the base of his throat as that instinctual part of himself that had been increasingly active all night finally caught up with the logical, conscious part of his brain and realized that he would not be taking care of his pack tonight, because he’d expressly let them know that they weren’t a pack and he didn’t want them around.  It didn’t matter how glad he was that they knew better than to come bother him for attention, because part of him was holding back a pathetic, keening whine because he wanted to call them to him and wrap them up and  _take care of them_ and none of that would be happening because he didn’t  _have_  a pack to take care of.  He had wolves – no, he didn’t have them, he didn’t  _want_ them, but there  _were_  wolves, and they were coping as they always had, away from him.  

Calle was tucked under Nealer’s arm, his head down and Nealer saying something quietly in his ear because Shea couldn’t even captain him right and he had to go to an alternate for help.  Carter was at Pekka’s side, forever his faithful shadow, and the two were wrapped in their own world created by the mutual understanding that goalies shared of just how much the responsibility of preventing goals could weigh on a single player – especially when he failed. Goose was standing among a crowd of human teammates, talking quietly and occasionally messing with his phone, and there, off to the side with most of the black aces, was Clune, failing miserably to pretend that he wasn’t staring obviously at Nealer while Mazanec pressed tightly against his side, hovering in a way that was strange even for a wolf that was a goalie.  Something about that entire situation was strange, but Shea wouldn’t know what it was, because he mostly tried to ignore that they existed.

Which led to his greatest problem now, because he was heavily experiencing instinctual reactions ( _“nesting instincts,”_  he could hear Ryan say in his head with a laugh, the way he had when Shea had first become alpha and begun wringing his hands over how badly he wanted to take care of his pack, and that was enough to make his hair stand on end) to the situation and those instincts were never going to be fulfilled. He knew if he acted now, he would regret it later.  It would be worse for everyone involved: he would have to deal with a group of wolves who mistakenly, due to his actions, suddenly thought he actually cared about them, and it would be a hard readjustment for the wolves as they reminded themselves that Shea playing alpha to them was not a normal occurrence and would never be happening again.

So really, it was for the best that he let them all do as they would normally and watched as the group slowly filtered away, ignoring that desire to keen painfully as each wolf left, denying him the chance to take care of them (the chance he didn’t want).

And it wasn’t really a surprise to him when it then felt nearly impossible to let go of Seth, to give him up to and let him go home with his mother, even though she was undoubtedly better equipped to comfort him than Shea, and it then became obvious what his answer would be when Roman looked at him with tired, hesitant eyes and asked if he could stay at Shea’s tonight.

Roman was the only safe choice Shea had, the only person he could let himself have, and he would be damned if he couldn’t make at least one person on his team feel better tonight.

And so he took Roman home, or rather, let Roman take him home while he was scolded that he shouldn’t have drove himself in the first place, and he resolved himself to push whatever strange instincts he’d been having out of his mind, because things were the way they were supposed to be: he had his team, and he had Roman, and to a lesser extent Seth and even Cody, an old, comfortable reminder of home and of happier times, and he didn’t need a pack.

The season was over now for them anyway, and after locker room cleanout in a few days, he wouldn’t even have to think of the other wolves on his team until next fall.

~~~

That prospect wasn’t nearly as blissful as he had previously believed, he discovered on the day of the actual cleanout, because he was watching his team gather their things, emptying the room they had all shared so closely this past year, and for the first time in his entire NHL career it kind of made him feel like puking, and he was pretty sure that wasn’t the meds.

He learned very quickly that he hadn’t done away with the alpha instincts that had been running rampant through his mind a few days previous, but rather put them on hold.  And after being stifled in their attempts to comfort the pack, the only thing worse to them was watching that pack put itself into boxes and disappear with the very real possibilities that they might never come back.  And suddenly, the thought of a summer away from the pack, where he couldn’t keep an eye on them and  _keep them safe_ , felt entirely unpalatable when it had only hours ago been his ultimate goal, to finally be  _alone_  for once.

But he knew there wasn’t anything he could do about it. Just like before, the part of his brain still functioning normally didn’t even  _want_  to do anything because he enjoyed things just the way that they were.  But his wolf was pacing in his chest, restless and whining and unhappy with the entire situation as he felt himself nearly become choked up at the prospect of letting his pack – no, the  _wolves_ , leave without a word, without a fight.  Without a whimper.

That was exactly what he did, though.  He watched them do their exit interviews and gather their things and say their goodbyes, all whilst steadfastly refusing to even glance in his direction, and he saw how some of them hugged each other, completely unremarkable surrounded by humans doing just the same but still feeling like so much  _more_  now that he couldn’t stop watching them, and Nealer was making the rounds, checking in with the team, rubbing a hand over guys’ shoulders and hugging others and generally being a much better leader than Shea right now.  Shea watched him pull Calle into a long hug and marveled at how he’d somehow missed that friendship.  He’d missed a lot, apparently.  It was becoming increasingly difficult to decide if he minded.

He told himself he didn’t, because of  _course_  he didn’t, but that still didn’t stop him from feeling like something was intensely wrong as his pack left once again, this time possibly for good but at the very least for the summer, only giving nods and quiet goodbyes in his direction, enough so as to not look weird but conspicuously avoiding coming within touching distance.  And he told himself that things were going to be better now that they were gone and he could get rid of all of these weird feelings and come back next year with a new focus completely devoid of them, and he told himself that he could spend the summer maybe focusing on whatever this was that he had going with Roman.

And when he went home for the summer he’d be back in Sicamous, with his family and his brother and Cody, and he would have a pack and things would feel normal again.

He told himself all of that, and he honestly believed it, so he couldn’t explain why on the next full moon, as he sat alone in his house with his leg propped up and itching for a shift he couldn’t perform, something inside of him howled mournfully for all of the things that he didn’t want to have.


	26. Predators: Dicky/Nealer Soulmate AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original note: Recently @bluecamellia told me that “I kinda want to have a fun night out for my birthday but I also kinda wanna find an epic 200k words long fic that kits all my likes and interests and I’ll be set,” and well, this isn’t 200k, but it is super-tropey Dicky/Nealer werewolf soulmates fic with angst on top that throws logic to the wind, so I think it should be pretty relevant to your interests. I know it’s a little late at night but it’s still technically your birthday so HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
> 
> This takes place in the same soulmate AU as the Stafford/Giroux soulmates fic, and is therefore not "canon."
> 
> 9/25/15

By the time he reached the AHL, Rich had figured out that there was a chance he was perhaps not very good at being a werewolf. Nobody had actually  _said_  something to him, but when the other wolves on successive teams tried to avoid you and the wolf on the training staff just shook his head when he saw you like you were the kind of disappointment that was past helping, you kind of got the idea that maybe there was something wrong with you that other wolves were able to notice.

Rich wasn’t quite sure what it was about him that was off, what he was doing  _wrong_ , exactly, but he knew it was his fault.  It had to be something he’d done.

Well, fuck them.  He had friends, he didn’t need them anyway.  He didn’t need a pack; he had his family back home, and he had human friends on the team, and he didn’t need anything or anyone else.

(That wasn’t what he told his parents: as far as they were concerned, Rich was getting along great with the team’s pack and they were all very close and spent a lot of time together and he didn’t get drunk by himself before every full moon so he could try to not notice just how achingly lonely he was.  His parents didn’t need to know that. He didn’t want to worry them.)

He knew that there had to be something about him that made him different, something unspoken that indicated to other wolves that he was to be avoided. Maybe it was his scent: after all, it wasn’t like he could very well smell himself, so he wouldn’t be able to tell if there was something offensive about it.  Maybe this pack was just bad at accepting new members?  But then, he wasn’t the only new wolf to the team, and everyone else was accepted with open arms like they’d been pack all along.

So.

It was just him, then.

Being abruptly and unexpectedly rejected in his time in professional hockey since leaving the OHL was admittedly a painful situation, but even if he considered himself to be the reason for that rejection, Rich didn’t really see it as his  _fault_. After all, he hadn’t actually  _done_  anything to anyone, hadn’t done something to deserve other wolves acting like he was a leper.

But then when James Neal came to the Iowa Stars…well. Rich felt like he had earned the blame for his weirdness, then.

You were supposed to be able to scent your soulmate better than any other wolf in the world.  Scents were how wolves identified each other, and your soulmate would smell better to you than anything else you had ever encountered – and only you would recognize their scent so thoroughly that you could break it down like the ingredients in a gourmet meal, scenting the original components as well as the blended whole.

In essence, when it came to soulmates, scent was everything.

Humans didn’t have soulmates, or if they did, nobody had discovered how they were supposed to identify them yet.  They didn’t have scents likes wolves, with complexities and layers that remained constant no matter their context or how they tried to cover it up.  Humans mostly smelled like whatever their house smelled like, plus whatever they ate most recently and their brand of soap. They didn’t have soulmate scents. That was why a wolf could only ever have another wolf as a soulmate.

James Neal was very thoroughly and obviously not a werewolf.  For one thing, no wolf would be caught dead hanging around a club on a full moon, and yet there Neal was, trying to convince a bunch of guys to head out with him after a game on the night of a full moon.  And for another, wolves could recognize other wolves by their scent – they may not be able to make out their true scent, their soulmate scent, but it wasn’t hard to smell if there was another wolf around when you spent hours every day locked in confined spaces with them. Neal didn’t behave like a wolf, and he didn’t smell like one either. He was so human that Rich could have cried.

He nearly did cry, actually, because James Neal also smelled like the most beautiful thing Rich had ever encountered.  It reminded him of something distinctly outdoorsy, like campfire smoke and spruce, which was truly laughable seeing as Neal was a little dork who bought expensive socks and worried constantly about his hair, despite the fact that it always looked terrible. And under the smoke was a hint of something tart and sugary like raspberries with the muted sweetness of freshly cut grass clippings.  James Neal smelled comfortable like a summer evening outdoors with Rich’s family pack back home, like soothing familiarity and acceptance and calm.

James Neal smelled like Rich’s soulmate.

And that was when Rich decided that he was well and truly fucked, and it had to be his fault.  Nobody else would be stupid enough to think a human was their soulmate – or worse, to try to impose their own weird sense of loneliness onto someone who could never understand your culture and its meanings. Scent culture meant nothing to someone who couldn’t even detect it. And it meant even less when describing it would make you sound insane.

This was, he decided, one of those situations that alcohol was truly created for. If he was drunk, it was easier not to think about how his soulmate appeared to be someone who could never love him back, or that he had likely just deluded himself into thinking a human was his soulmate because he was just that miserable of a person. If he was drunk, it was easier not to think about anything at all.

Except.  There was always an  _except_.

The  _except_  was that every time Rich went out with the team with the intention of getting absolutely shitfaced, James was there too.  He wasn’t like Rich, not exactly: Nealer was always going out because he liked partying.  Rich went out because he liked drinking.  Those things were nearly the same, but not quite.

That didn’t stop Nealer from attaching himself to Rich’s side like they were the best of friends, and it was happening with an unnerving frequency when Rich went out with the team.

“ _Dicky!_ ” Nealer would cry, throwing an arm around Rich’s shoulder as he plastered himself against Rich’s side in the team’s booth, pressing a sloppy kiss to his cheek that would make their teammates snicker if they weren’t too drunk to notice themselves.  “Dicky,I  _missed_  you, where have you been?”

And every time Rich would stare at his drink in his hands and try not to notice how Nealer smelled like everything he had ever wanted, try to resist the ache in his teeth that made him want to  _bite,_  to  _claim_  because Nealer could be absentminded but he would be a pretty mate, a  _sweet_ mate, and people would want him, they would sense that about him and they would want him for their own and Rich couldn’t have that, he couldn’t, Nealer was his, he  _needed_  him, James was-

 _Nealer_  was human.  And sitting so close to him and breathing in his possibly-made-up scent ruined any sort of buzz Rich had and made a knotted up feeling of something like guilt surface in his gut.  God, but he was so fucked up. He couldn’t drag Nealer into this.

And so every time, Rich would smile blandly and pat Nealer’s hand while carefully unwinding it from around his neck and say, “I’ve been here, buddy, how about you?”

“I’ve been here too!” Nealer would chirp, but his eyes would be bright if a little glassy and unfocused, like he was just so pleased with himself for having been in the same room as Rich the whole time, doing the same thing.

And then Nealer would make it all worse by saying something like, “I really like being here with you,” and that was really just unfair.  They barely even spoke in the locker room; Rich had made sure of that, because he was doing his damnedest to try to be responsible about something for the first time in years, and he was doing that by avoiding dragging Nealer into whatever weirdness he’d mucked up.

But Nealer seemed to be doing his level best to throw himself headlong into all of Rich’s strangeness, and hey, there was only so much he could do before he just had to let the guy make his own decisions. Nealer wanted to make himself Rich’s new BFF?  Fine, he could deal with that. It would be a good character-building lesson for him, to spend his days being trailed by the one person he was supposed to be avoiding.  Maybe it would give him something concrete to focus on, when the creeping self-doubt in the back of his mind got too loud to ignore and he wanted to do anything to stop feeling so miserable and on-edge. Focusing on controlling himself and remaining reserved while standing next to someone his instincts told him to chase, to  _own_ , was going to be difficult, but maybe it was the challenge he needed.  He was always smart, back in school; maybe a challenge would do him some good.

It didn’t do him any good, in the end, or at least it didn’t help his plan to strengthen his resistance against Nealer by spending more time with him. If anything, the entire plan backfired because spending his days with James Neal was an exercise in masochism, and not just because he liked to talk a lot.

Nealer was…well it would make sense that Rich would like him, seeing as you were  _supposed_  to like your soulmate, but considering that Nealer was also thoroughly human and therefore not a werewolf, it was also impossible for him to be Rich’s soulmate.

So maybe it was just something about Nealer, about his smile and his easy friendship and his stupid jokes, that made Rich just naturally like him.  That might have been worse, actually.

Rich could rage against fate prescribing him somebody, if he wanted, but there wasn’t anyone he could attack for his own feelings.

Except for, of course, himself, but drinking felt more like a reward than a punishment, especially when it came with Nealer attached.

The most infuriating ( _the most exciting_ ) thing was that if Rich decided to stay in his hotel room and drink instead of going out with the guys on the road, Nealer would insist on joining him.

“It’s because we’re friends,” he’d hum, attempts at appearing casual completely at odds with the obvious cow eyes he would be flashing Rich’s way, so innocent and happy and naive to how he was cuddling up to his very own predator, a warm weight slouched against Rich’s side.

Rich would make some noncommittal sound, barely listening to the words, and tell himself the arm he put around Nealer’s shoulder was only to keep him from falling over, only because they were drunk and they were  _friends_  and friends looked after friends.

And if he took perhaps decreasingly surreptitious sniffs of Nealer’s hair, his neck, then that was only for him to know.  Besides, he was drunk. You can’t be blamed for what you do when you’re drunk.

Stroking Nealer’s hair as he started to doze against Rich’s shoulder and letting something almost like a purring growl start to hum in his chest…well, that one was on Rich.

His plan wasn’t working.

He could never decide if it was better or worse when he was bounced between the Stars and the Steelheads in the ECHL. Well, it was worse, because being sent to the ECHL was definitely a step down, but on the other hand, if he couldn’t steel himself against his reactions to Nealer via overexposure, then maybe some prolonged time away would be good for him.  Maybe, if he wasn’t twitching every time Nealer came in the room, something in his chest perking up and making his eyes move unbidden to locate the man his wolf felt sure was his, maybe if he wasn’t pining whenever Nealer was away, trying not to snarl jealously when he was laughing with someone else, when he was being  _touched_  by someone else, maybe then he’d really just grow out of whatever this weird obsession was and move on and pretend to be normal.

Maybe that would happen.

Or maybe, he would just feel even worse, missing Nealer like a severed limb, and then maybe he’d just comfort himself by going out at every possible chance, numbing the sense of near-traumatic loss with alcohol and whatever else someone would hand him that promised a good time. Maybe he would spend his full moons in a haze locked in the hotel room the team had rented for him, because he couldn’t fathom the idea of spending a full moon away from Nealer entirely conscious and waking up naked and hungover in the park in the morning would be one strike more than the organization was willing to handle.

Maybe all of that was a little too close to reality for his liking.  But when he thought about it at the time, his response was to shake his head and crack open another bottle of beer.

So he was fucked up.  So what?  So was everything else in his life; he may as well make it match.

When that happened, he would follow his usual routine of going out, getting drunk, picking up and doing his damndest to forget all of the pining and self-loathing that was scrabbling around in his chest, pacing and fighting for dominance.

If nobody noticed, could he really be falling apart?

The season ended with a whimper, neither the Steelheads nor the Stars making the playoffs.  It was obvious when the Stars played their final game that Nealer was disappointed, and Rich could feel his own whimper trying to climb out of his throat when he saw Nealer’s ducked head, how he swiped at his eyes and failed entirely to act like he wasn’t crying.  It was tough to fail in your first professional year, even if you knew you weren’t making the playoffs.

Rich was used to failure by now.  He wasn’t used to feeling so distraught at someone else’s pain.

Nealer looked up and met his eyes across the room. Those stupid giant cow eyes were staring at him, wide and beseeching.  Nealer was miserable, and for some reason, he wanted Rich to fix it.

He gave a bland, tight media smile and turned away.

It was probably the smartest thing he’d done all year. Best not to drag someone else onto Rich’s failure-train, especially not someone as good and bright and bound for success as Nealer.  Especially not with someone as fucked up as Rich, the werewolf that even the other werewolves thought was a freak.

He was doing Nealer a favor, really.

And so he went home, and he had a drink, and he did his best to forget that he ever knew the name James Neal.  Next season Nealer would probably be gone, and Rich would be able to forget all about him.

That night, his dreams were haunted by big blue eyes and the smell of raspberry campfires.

~~~

He never did forget James Neal.  Rich was traded to the Monarchs and Nealer went up to the Dallas Stars, doing promotional videos with his new landlord Brad Richards, looking for all the world like his dopey rent boy while Rich was left to grind his teeth over the thought of someone that was  _his_  living with and taking guidance from another wolf.

So Rich told himself to ignore it, just like he ignored his teammates’ looks in the locker room, ignored how the coaches look at him reprehensively, like he’d already done something wrong, ignored how the pack on the Monarchs hated him just as much as the ones on the Stars and the Steelheads.  How his parents sounded concerned for him, how his mom asked if he was okay, if she should come visit.  How the last time he saw his brothers, they looked scared.

Alcohol and drugs and sex helped you ignore a lot of things, like how your life was in shambles and how you really just didn’t care anymore. They also helped you ignore the phantom scent that clung to you like a parasite that could never be killed, just there to remind you of what a fuck-up you were.

Two years later, Rich was called up to the Los Angeles Kings, made the actual show in his state, and he couldn’t ignore it anymore. At that point, he felt so exhausted and miserable and fucked up that he didn’t think he wanted to.

The hardest part was admitting it all to his parents – everything.  The drinking and the drugs, they’d already known about.  The thing about Nealer, not so much.  But they accepted it all without a word, tears in their eyes but also understanding.  They never once even questioned if what he’d smelled on Nealer, what he’d felt for him, was real, even when Rich himself still wasn’t sure it was real. (He hadn’t seen Nealer since that one season together ended in tears, even though Nealer had tried to contact him more than once. Keeping himself away from Nealer seemed like the best thing Rich could do for him. But three years hadn’t made James Neal’s lingering scent fade even a bit from his memory.)

“I’m sure it must have happened before,” his mother said, when Rich told them about Nealer.  “I know that – even if he can’t scent you back, if you recognize his scent, then he must be yours.  You can’t be the only one this has happened to.”

“Unless I was just so pathetic that I made it up.” In the state Rich had been for the entirety of his hockey career, it wouldn’t be too unbelievable.

But his parents weren’t having it.

“You can’t make up a soulmate scent,” his father said, sternly but not unkindly. “When you know – you just  _know_. You can’t trick yourself into that kind of fixation, that devotion.  If you smelled it, then it’s real.  I don’t know how, but it is.  And you shouldn’t have to deny that.”

His mother was nodding along, tears in her eyes, and Rich was so overwhelmed in that moment with how much he loved his parents, how much he didn’t deserve them, how much they hadn’t deserved to put up with his bullshit breaking their hearts for the last few years.

This was it, he decided.  He was done with, with drinking and drugs and everything else. From now on, he was going to be the son they deserved, and he was going to be someone his little brothers could look up to again.

And maybe one day, if he was lucky and the stars aligned, he could be someone that James Neal deserved too.

~~~

Rich was picked up off of waivers by the Predators in 2013.  It was the fresh start he’d been hoping for for two years, the one he’d been trying so hard to earn.  He jumped from the AHL to the NHL immediately, and never got sent back down. This was it, his real break in the show, his chance to finally knock off that eternal “prospect” title that had been following him around for his entire career.

He was a real NHL player, and he was completely sober. It felt like he was living in a dream, and he never wanted to wake up.

And when he dreamed, he was no longer haunted by raspberry campfires surrounded by spruce trees and cut grass and toothy smiles and bright eyes. Those dreams, he now welcomed with open arms.

When James Neal was traded to Nashville from Pittsburgh during the 2014 draft, Rich for once in his life got the feeling that maybe fate wasn’t actually out to fuck him over.

Maybe this time, he was being given a second chance to get things right.

He wasn’t going to fuck it up again.  Not this time.

After the trade, he bit the bullet and did something he’d been avoiding for six years: he contacted James Neal.

Frankly, Rich expected things to be a little awkward, because your old hot mess of a drinking buddy from the AHL contacting you out of the blue after half a decade tended to be uncomfortable for most people.

But then again, Nealer had never been like “most people.” Even if he enjoyed living up to the stereotype people had of him as a vapid party boy more concerned with his hair than reality, Nealer had always been one to surprise people.

He surprised Rich by responding to his message on twitter an hour after it was sent with a phone number, the words “call me,” and a smiley face.

And when Rich followed his instructions, Nealer greeted him warmly, as if no time had past at all and they were still two losers in Iowa on a shitty team, pretending they weren’t snuggling on a hotel bed. Except this time, with the way Nealer spoke, the intonation in his voice, Rich started to get the warm feeling in his chest that perhaps Nealer wouldn’t really mind if they stopped pretending this time.

 _This time_.  If Rich could pull off a “this time.”  But when he asked with forced casualness if James wanted to come stay with him when the season started, “you know, just until you can find a place of your own,” Nealer agreed instantly, like living with a guy who was a total loser the last time you saw him and hadn’t talked to you in six years was an everyday thing.

So maybe “this time” was more of a possibility than he’d previously thought.

Rich took a lot of crap from his brothers for his jittery anxiety as they dropped him off at the airport to head back to Nashville for the season. But they smiled and hugged him with whispers of encouragement, and Rich clutched them close and breathed in their scents and did his best to believe that they were right.

He hadn’t needed to be so nervous.  Living with Nealer was probably the easiest thing he’d ever done.

Everything just felt  _natural_ , in a way that made his wolf practically purr with satisfaction.  He got to wake up with Nealer in the same house every morning and make him breakfast (and oh wow, did that ever do it for him, getting to  _provide_  for his – for Nealer) and train with him and chirp him and play videogames with him and spend his evenings with him, going out to dinner or watching tv shows and not drinking at all and Rich was able to just  _bask_  in his scent, in smoke and raspberries, and this time he could let himself feel welcome, just a little bit.

He hadn’t talked about it to Nealer yet.  It felt like he had to wait longer, wait until they had settled more into a routine.  (That wasn’t the full reason. There was part of him that wanted to hold off on telling Nealer just in case this all blew up in his face.  He wanted something good to remember, if that happened.)

So on his first full moon with Nealer in the house, Rich went to bed early with an excuse of not feeling well and locked himself in his room, promising himself as he curled up in a nest of blankets on his bed that maybe next month he wouldn’t be alone.

He woke the next morning to the smell of something burning, and it wasn’t just part of Nealer’s natural scent.

_“What the hell?”_

The kitchen thankfully wasn’t full of smoke, but there was an unsettling cloud around a pan on the stove, something black sizzling in it. Nealer was fluttering around it uselessly and making nervous sounds, and he spun around with wide eyes when he heard Rich’s voice.

“It’s just a little singed!” he yelped.  “Well – okay, I think they’re really, really burned, but I didn’t mean it!  I just turned around for like a minute to make orange juice, because fresh orange juice always makes me feel better when I’m sick, and when I turned back, the eggs were….”

He gestured uselessly at the stove.

“Sorry.  I asked Paulie for directions and everything, because I wanted to do something nice for you because you were sick and you let me stay with you and, and we’re friends.”

 _“It’s because we’re friends_ ,” said a twenty year old Nealer six years ago, nestling up against Rich’s side on a hotel bed.

Perhaps “friends” meant something more to Nealer than Rich had previously realized.

“And we’re friends,” Rich agreed, taking a step closer and checking that the stove was turned off.  He picked up the pan and a spatula and started scraping its contents into the trash.  He could feel Nealer’s eyes on him the whole time, attentive.

“It’s okay, Jimmy.  I’m not mad. This sort of shit happens.” He took the pan to the sink and started filling it with water and dish soap, flashing Nealer a smile over his shoulder.  “It’s just cool that you tried.”

Nealer was full-out beaming by the time he finished talking, practically bouncing over to Rich with a face so bright it almost hurt to look at him.

Rich couldn’t look away.

“You’ve never called me Jimmy before.”

“I haven’t?”

Nealer shook his head, but he was still smiling.  “Nah, man, it’s always ‘Nealer,’ and like, that’s not bad, but-” He rocked back and forth on his feet, smile smug like he’d just scored a hat trick. The burned eggs were long-forgotten. “We’re  _friends_.”

And it was early in Rich’s plan, a month too early, he was supposed to let things settle more, at  _least_  wait for camp to start, but…

“Hey Jimmy.” Nealer –  _James_  nodded encouragingly, teeth flashing white in his smile. “What exactly does that mean to you, to be friends?”

This made James falter, his smile flickering.  “I, uh…we’re friends!  It’s, you know, friends.”

“The same way that Paul Martin is your friend?” And oh, reading about their friendship, about how they’d lived together and were so codependent that people joked they were a couple, had been so hard for Rich to swallow.

“What?   _No_ , ew, Paulie and I are just-”

“Friends?”

James looked chagrinned.  “Well, yeah, but it’s not the  _same_ , you know?”

“Why not?”

“Because – because you’re  _you_ , and right from when we first met, I knew…”

“What?”

No response had ever been so important to Rich before this moment.

“I knew we were going to be friends,” James finished softly.

“But not just normal friends.”

James shook his head.

“No, because – because I just  _knew_ , okay?  You were like – a lot of the guys on the team were weird about you, because of, because you liked to party, and you were into a lot of hardcore stuff, but I mean, I liked to drink too, and you were just – I don’t know, you were just  _something_ , like, like I wanted to be around you, because you were so bright and being around you made me feel happy and things just felt  _right_.  And it still feels like that now.”

There was a lump in Rich’s throat that made it hard to speak.  “Do you…what do you think that means?”

The look in James’s eyes was vulnerable, but though his voice was soft, it was strong.  “I think it means that we were meant to be friends.  I was meant to be close to you.”

It wasn’t at all like what Rich had imagined, or what he had planned. There was no dinner and no warm-up and Rich didn’t have anything rehearsed, but doing it right there in his kitchen at nine in the morning felt as good as any time to do it.

“In my family,” he croaked; he swallowed against the lump in his throat. “In our…culture, we believe that there’s a way to tell when you’ve met your – your soulmate.  The one person who’s perfect for you.  And when I met you…I thought you might be mine.”

This was where James could have flinched back in disgust and confusion, barking epithets and assertions that he wasn’t  _like that_.

But instead his attention was rapt, face slack and eyes trained with startling clarity on Rich’s.

“How can you tell?” he asked softly, “How do you – how do you know?”

“We can…we can smell it.  Everyone has a scent, but your soulmate’s scent is the strongest to you, the most beautiful.  It’s your favorite thing in the world. And you…you smell like fresh-cut grass and spruce trees and raspberries and smoke from a campfire.  You smell like you’re mine.”

James took a step closer, and then another, backing Rich against the sink. “How can you smell it?  I can’t…I don’t smell any of those things.”

“You can’t smell your own scent.  But also…you can’t smell anyone’s scent, because you’re a human.”

This was where James could have called Rich crazy and told him to see one of the medical staff.  This is where he could have run screaming from the house.

This was where he turned his head to the side and moved ever closer until they were breathing the same air and Rich could feel the warmth of his body so close to his own.

“Then what does that make you?”

Rich swallowed again, steeling himself, and met those wide blue eyes that had followed him for years.

“It makes me a werewolf.  And I think it makes me your soulmate.”

And this was where they kissed for the first time, up against Rich’s kitchen sink in Nashville, James’s body pinning Rich to the counter, one of his hands cupping his skull and the other wrapped tightly around his waist, clenching at his back, his hip.  James was in total control of the kiss, guiding Rich where he wanted,  _doing_  what he wanted, and Rich was deliriously reminded of what he’d always thought: James Neal was full of surprises.

When they parted, James pressed his forehead against Rich’s, breathing heavily.  “So how I feel about you is supposed to be some kind of Twilight shit?”

Rich made a face and James chuckled; Rich could feel it reverberating against his chest.  “I’m a  _werewolf_ , man.”

“There are werewolves in Twilight.  But I’m sure you’re much better.” He was dotting tiny kisses down Rich’s jaw, and then settled in against the hinge of it, nipping it in a way that was highly distracting and wholly unexpected.

Rich laughed, helpless, flustered.  “And you’re not going to question this at all? You aren’t freaked out?”  His voice was breathless with both surprise and exhilaration.  He could have never predicted a reaction like this.

James pulled away with one last little kiss to Rich’s jaw before moving back to his lips, mouth moving against them as he said, “Does it make sense if I say that it just makes sense?” He ended his words in another kiss, catching Rich’s lips with his own and passing his tongue over them with a level of bold confidence that would have raised Rich’s eyebrows if he wasn’t finding himself the one struggling to catch up.

“I mean, I don’t get everything,” James said between kisses, “I don’t really understand any of it, actually.  But it explains why I’ve been obsessively tracking your career for the last six years-” Another kiss swallowed up his words. “And why I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since I fucking  _met_  you-” This one firm, and with a lot more tongue. “And why the idea of getting to play on the same team as you and live with you and spend every day with you made me want to fucking  _cry_  with happiness.”

His tongue tangled with Rich’s as if he couldn’t help himself, as if he was desperate, cutting off anything else he might have said.

It was Rich who had to pull back.  James accommodated him by shifting his attention to Rich’s neck, mouthing it lovingly.

“Jimmy,” Rich breathed, clutching a useless hand in that stupid fluffy hair. “You’re really just going to be – okay with all of this?”

James’s attention shifted back up to Rich’s face, and his grin was so feral that it suddenly occurred to Rich that even though he was the actual wolf, he was by no means the predator in this relationship.

Shifting impossibly closer to Rich, pressing their hips together, James asked, “Do I seem okay with it?”

He swallowed Rich’s moan with a kiss, holding him firmly in place as he moved slowly, languorously against him.  Rich broke the kiss to slide his lips across James’s face, the arch of his cheekbone.

“There’s a thing,” he gasped, “In – in our culture. That wolves do when they meet their soulmates.”

“Oh yeah?”  James circled his hips gently, just enough to be tantalizingly frustrating through their layers of clothing.  His mouth had once again found its way to Rich’s neck, this time biting the skin behind his ear.

“Yeah.  We – we claim our soulmates, to let everyone know that they’re ours.”

There was something gratifying and endlessly erotic about the hitch in James’s voice.  “How do you do that?”

Rich breathed his words against James’s ear.

“We bite them.”

James cursed against his throat, his hips jerking forward involuntarily; Rich choked back a moan.

“ _Yes_ ,” James groaned, hips now moving firmly against Rich’s own, “We should do that.”

“ _Now_?”

The idea of it, to bite his soulmate and mark him as his own against his fucking  _kitchen sink_ , dry humping through their pants like a couple of teenagers after meeting seven years ago, was ludicrous,  _obscene_ , and so, so fucking hot.

“Holy shit, yeah,  _do it_.”

There was no level of logic or tradition that was going to stop Rich from following that order.

He pushed James away from his own neck just enough to get his lips against James’s own, teeth scraping across the stubble of his jaw and slipping to the salty skin below it.  James arched his neck so sweetly and  _there_  Rich’s teeth landed on a spot right at the curve of his neck and shoulder that made his teeth ache to bite, to claim, and this time, he actually did it.

James’s surprised shout felt like bliss, one hand holding Rich’s mouth to his neck, the other rucked up under the worn cotton of his t-shirt, hips bucking wildly against Rich’s own.  It was all Rich could do to hold on, and then he gave up and let himself be swept away in the feeling of how  _right_  it was, how perfect, to have James here, holding him down, encouraging him and  _begging_  to be claimed, and now James was his, forever, perfect and bright and  _his_ , and when Rich finally let himself let go and just  _feel_ , James went with him.

He supposed they would be doing just about everything together now. They  _were_  soulmates.

It was only through James holding him against the counter that Rich didn’t slide bonelessly to the floor, but then, it was only by bracing himself against Rich that James didn’t topple over himself.  There was something poetic about holding each other up, about supporting each other.  Rich’s mind stayed wrapped up in this, in the warmth and perfection of raspberry campfires all around him and James clutching him close, and he thought that somehow, he had gotten a second chance, and  _somehow_ , it had all worked out.

He was drawn from his loose, happy reveries by a warm huff of laughter against his neck.

“What?”  Rich’s voice was quiet; he felt afraid to break this fragile moment they’d made for themselves, tucked somewhere between passion and reality.

James pressed a kiss behind Rich’s ear and hugged him close, his chin resting on Rich’s shoulder.

“I think I just fell in love and had the most amazing experience of my life, and I’m staring down at the pan of egg scraps I burned.”

It was absurd, and it was a little gross, and it still felt perfect.

“I think I love you too.  Burned eggs and all.”

He could feel James’s smile against his neck, and then against his mouth as James kissed him slowly, languidly, as if he had plenty of time and he wanted to make good use of it memorizing Rich’s mouth.

“Good,” James said against his lips, “That means you won’t mind making us breakfast.”

Rich would have smacked him, but he was too busy kissing him.


	27. Sabres: Fix-It Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by an interview that Tyler Ennis gave about Ryan Miller returning to face the team as a Canuck (his first game playing against the Sabres); the first two lines are taken verbatim from the interview. I had originally linked to a video of the interview but I believe it is no longer on the Sabres website.
> 
> The next few parts are one story written over multiple posts; I'm posting them separately because they fit as separate chapters.
> 
> 11/7/15

“What do you remember about the night he was traded, a late scratch against San Jose, what do you remember about that?”

“I don’t remember, actually. Um, we’ve had a lot of trades the last few years so I don’t actually remember that specific night.”

That was the truth.  Tyler actually didn’t remember the specific night that Ryan Miller was traded away from the city and the team and the pack, sent along with Steve Ott to St. Louis so that this time Buffalo could trade away two captains at once; after all, nobody who had played on that team would have ever denied that Ryan Miller was a captain of the Buffalo Sabres, whether in name or not.

He didn’t remember that, because the memory was too conflated with what came after.  Ryan leaving wasn’t just the loss of an alpha and a key member of the pack and the team and the city: it was the beginning of the end.  Ryan and Otter left, and then Luke, and then Drew and Mysey and Jhonas and Grigo and Nikita and  _Cody_ , and then there wasn’t a pack anymore after that.

Nobody had to inform Tyler of it; despite common beliefs, he was perceptive enough to string two and two together when none of the wolves would even look at each other anymore and the pack nights disappeared.  For a while Tyler still had Cody, and it wasn’t enough, didn’t feel  _right_ , but it had to be enough, because Tyler wasn’t even a wolf and he didn’t have a right to be upset if there wasn’t a pack anymore because it wasn’t like he  _needed_  a pack or anything.

It’s just that he was used to having a pack, had had one for over five years now, and it had felt a little bit like maybe they’d needed him too.  It felt nice, to feel needed.

But now Cody was gone too, and apparently nobody needed anybody anymore.

The season had started with excitement, a new coach, a whole pile of new players, not a one of them a wolf.  It was enough of a distraction to keep everyone’s minds off of the state of their pack, or lack thereof.  Tyler didn’t know what the pack was getting up to anymore, without Cody there to keep him abreast of any goings-on he might be able to suss out from their locker room interactions, but it looked like the status quo from the end of the last season was still alive and well.

Marcus and Mark had thoroughly embraced their human teammates even more than they had in the past.  Mark had found himself a new best friend in Jake, and given how much Marcus had taken to referencing his dad and his siblings, Tyler could guess that he was probably relying on his family a lot to be his full-time pack when he wasn’t hanging out with his teammates.

Zemgus was being oddly enigmatic about the whole thing, if a wolf could be an island while surrounded by friends.  Maybe some of it was the addition of Eichs taking some of the media attention away from him, allowing him to slip into the background more.  Maybe it was just what a wolf did when they didn’t want to risk getting too attached.

Rasmus had been close to Nikita and Misha when the season ended, but with them gone now, he just kept looking around with those ridiculously sad puppy eyes, chewing fretfully at his lip and sticking as close as possible to the veteran d-men not named Mike Weber.

And Mike…Mike was taking his position as a veteran teammate seriously. Maybe he wasn’t considered to be a top-pairing defenseman among their new influx of teammates, but he played the part all the same, making himself a reliable friend and source of support for any teammate whether he was on the ice or sitting scratched in the press box.

Well, any teammate who was human, at least.  He wasn’t threatening or rude towards the other wolves, but he certainly wasn’t going out of his way to help them.

And Tyler, he wasn’t sure what he was anymore.  The wolves were strange towards him, torn between trying to avoid him as a former packmate, treating him like the rest of the humans (therefore making him open game), and physically attaching themselves to his side because he was the only available thing they had that was close to pack. They stuck more with the former two than the latter.

He didn’t know why they didn’t want to be a pack anymore; he couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t even want to try.  But nobody had ever accused Tyler of being very bright.

At least he wasn’t the only one confused.  Sam had come back from a season in juniors to find the pack had completely dissolved in the absence of the only team alpha he’d ever known. Even a month into the season, he still walked around sometimes with a certain shell-shocked look to his face, eyes wide and a little lost, looking around at the pack the way Rasmus did, like he was silently begging them to please,  _please_ swoop in and make everything right again. The pack he’d had before wasn’t perfect, but it was safe, and it had been like home.

Tyler knew that feeling.  He thought sometimes that maybe he should be trying to help Sam, should try to take him in now that it had become apparent that nobody else was going to.

But Tyler hadn’t been feeling very up to being helpful, lately.  He didn’t feel like himself.  He felt…tired.  A little worn out.  Exhausted, probably, and the season had only just begun.  He felt  _old_.  Everything had changed and it was fantastic and new and exciting, and part of him felt old the way that crackers got when you left them in the cupboard for too long.  He was stale, maybe.  He got looked over for the newer stuff, the cookies and the rice cakes, the fresh things.

Nobody wanted stale crackers, least of all a pack.

On the one hand the influx of new teammates was great in this situation because they deflected the attention off of him; he wasn’t responsible for being the team’s top goal-scorer anymore.  But on the other hand, he didn’t feel quite responsible for much of anything, least of all playing the team welcome-wagon the way he used to.

He wasn’t sure it was worth it, when everyone left and decided that moving seven hundred miles away meant that their cell phones and the internet wouldn’t work anymore so they may as well just not answer his calls or his texts or his emails.  It wasn’t worth it to get attached when your pack was going to abandon you and so were your goalie and your friends and your Cody. Being a little aloof was good.  Everyone told him he was being really mature, standing up for the team.

Maybe sadness was maturity?  If so, Tyler was probably the most mature guy on the team.

He wasn’t supposed to be so sad when the team was so happy.  But the pack wasn’t supposed to break up and ignore each other and all be miserable about it but refuse to talk to each other, so nobody was following their scripts anymore.

And so Tyler didn’t hug his goalies that much anymore, or cuddle with werewolves, and he didn’t talk to Cody Hodgson.

He also didn’t keep a very close track of the team’s schedule, which admittedly wasn’t something he was ever very good at in the first place (Cody had been good at reminding him, when Cody remembered to be in the same city and play for the same team as him).  But usually he would have made note of a day like this.

Instead, Tyler was exiting the locker room after practice, head down and steadfastly not frowning at his phone (no missed messages, no missed calls, no sign that Cody had changed his mind about their five months of radio silence in the past two hours) when he bumped face-first into what would have been a wall if people made walls out of string beans and named them Ryan Miller.

“Whoa, hey there, Enzo.”

Ryan was looking down at him, his hands warmly bracketing Tyler’s arms to steady him.  He was smiling.

And then, he looked at Tyler for a little longer, and when Tyler didn’t say anything, his smile started to droop and turn concerned.

Oops.

“Tyler, you okay?”

Belatedly, Tyler pasted on his brightest, best selling-milk-to-the-media smile and said, “Yeah, I’m great!”

Ryan didn’t believe him, because Ryan was always way too smart for a string bean.

“What’s wrong?” Ryan hustled him out of the corridor and into an empty equipment room as if he wasn’t even thinking about it, gently pushing Tyler along in front of him the way he would have moved one of his cubs around. Once they were out of the potential view of others, he ducked his head, a cursory sniff over Tyler’s neck and hair (a  _status check_ , Roysy used to call it, back when things were happy and he was in the NHL and Tyler didn’t have a Cody to lose). Then he paused, his nose pressed close enough to Tyler’s scalp that his breath would have tickled if Tyler wasn’t busy shifting in an uncomfortable way he never used to feel around Ryan (around  _anyone_ , self-conscious didn’t used to be a phrase in his repertoire), and then Ryan began sniffing closely, slowly down from Tyler’s head back to his neck.

“Ty?” he asked slowly, his face still scant moments away from Tyler’s neck. It was the kind of light, leading, strained voice that belied foreboding ideas of something worse.  (Tyler didn’t think he used to be this perceptive; maybe being lonely and quiet had its benefits.)  “Ty, what happened?”

Tyler shrugged; if Ryan wasn’t going to ask a proper question, did he really have to give a proper response?

He jumped when he felt Ryan’s hand rest on his neck, on the back, the way he would have with one of his pack members.

It made something in Tyler’s chest want to sob and shriek and cry.  It didn’t feel fair, if it wasn’t going to last. It wasn’t fair to offer normalcy and acceptance when it was only going to go away soon.

Tyler thought about saying as much, but Ryan was making a big point of making Tyler look into his eyes when he spoke, so he figured he should maybe try to pay more attention.

“Tyler,” Ryan was repeating, his eyes serious and his tone firm.  “Why don’t you smell like the pack?”

He nearly shrugged again, the reaction instinctual by now, but he actually knew the answer to this one.

“We aren’t a pack anymore.”

Ryan frowned, his hand tightening before he seemed to remember himself and relaxed it, fingers scratching lightly at the ends of Tyler’s hair. “If something happened that made them decide that a human couldn’t be in the pack-”

Now it was Tyler’s turn to frown.  “I wasn’t talking about  _me_. I mean, the pack, their pack. It’s not a pack anymore.”

But Ryan was probably going to win the Frown Olympics at this rate.  “What do you mean?  What are you talking about?”  He looked upset, and Tyler felt guilty.  Ryan was one of his best friends, or he had been, before.  He shouldn’t give him such a hard time or make him feel so bad.

“It’s okay, don’t worry about it.  Everyone’s fine.”

“Fine with  _what_?  What happened, what’s wrong with the pack?”

“There  _isn’t_  a pack,” Tyler repeated, slower this time, the way he spoke way back in the second week of unanswered voicemails to Cody, like maybe if he just enunciated more clearly and slowed himself down, his words would start making enough sense for Cody to understand them and actually call him back.

(After about six weeks, he decided that maybe, Cody had understood him the entire time and just didn’t want to talk to him anymore.  And after five months, Tyler was still checking his phone every day for any sign of communication, because Tyler was apparently the only one who didn’t understand.)

Ryan blinked at him, one hand tight at Tyler’s nape and the other clutching at his arm.  He looked the way Tyler felt a lot of the time, disoriented, lost, a little confused, like he’d woken up in a world that had flown by him and was always just a few steps behind fully catching up.

Deciding to help him out, Tyler said in the same slow voice, “We had a pack, and then half of it left and everyone decided to stop having a pack, so, we don’t have a pack anymore.”

Ryan was already shaking his head.

“Ty, that doesn’t make any sense.  Look, what did they say to you, I’ll go-”

“I’m not  _lying_  or something,” Tyler protested, feeling a surge of indignant anger that he hadn’t experienced in a while, maybe since last spring, back when he allowed himself to get righteously angry over everything that happened to him because everything felt worth being passionate about.  “It’s just what happened.  There was a pack, and then there wasn’t, and nobody talks to each other anymore.  I had nothing to do with it.  They didn’t ask my opinion.”

But then, everybody rarely did.

“Well who’s the alpha?  I mean, it’s gotta be Webby, right?”

Ryan looked even more upset now, on top of perplexed.  Tyler wasn’t sure if he should feel bad for him or just feel perplexed himself.

“No, Cody said he didn’t want to do it, after Drew and Mysey and Jhonas left. Jhony tried to visit him once, after the season ended.  I don’t think it went well, because Cody said he must have left pretty fast and nobody saw him again.” Cody also got bought out shortly after that and stopped telling Tyler much of anything.

The way Ryan was looking at him was probably more confused than what such a simple story warranted.

“So who’s the alpha then?”

Tyler frowned and shook his head.

“There isn’t one; there isn’t a pack, so it’d be really hard to be the alpha of that.”

“Of course there’s a pack, everyone’s still here-”

“But they aren’t a  _pack_ ,” Tyler repeated, feeling more impatient now.  It wasn’t like it was fun for him to think about it either.  “Everyone left the pack and the guys that were left decided they didn’t want to be one anymore, so they aren’t. Everyone pretends to be human and makes friends with different teammates and nobody talks about being werewolves.”

Least of all Tyler.

Ryan was still staring at him with wide, too-confused eyes.  This wasn’t really that hard of a concept to grasp.

“Look, it’s like this.  Everyone was a pack, and then everybody started leaving, and the guys that were left decided that if they couldn’t leave too they would just leave the pack. It’s as simple as that.”

“And you?”

Tyler frowned, taken aback.  “I’m me.”

Ryan flashed him a brief quirk of a smile.  “I know that.  But…”

“I’m not a wolf.  I don’t matter.”

He knew that was true, because if he did, maybe Cody would still be talking to him instead of abandoning him so he could take smiling photos with his new teammates in his new pack, probably cuddling at night with somebody else, a real wolf with real wolfiness and not an annoying little human weirdo.

Tyler knew where he stood among werewolves.

Ryan looked upset, his eyebrows pinched and his mouth open as if ready to defend Tyler’s honor from Tyler himself, before his mouth closed and he looked away, aiming his troubled expression at the wall over Tyler’s head.

“I knew things had changed,” Ryan told the wall.  Tyler was tempted to turn around and look at it too, to see what made it so interesting, but Ryan’s grip on him remained tight and two-handed.

“I knew things were different, but I thought they might be…better-different, you know?”

Tyler shrugged.  He didn’t claim to know much of anything, anymore.

“I knew things might be strained, but I’d never thought that-”

“That everyone would just give up?”

He stared calmly back into Ryan’s surprised stare.  Without prompting he added, “I asked them why they were giving up, back when it happened. Nobody wanted to talk about it, so I stopped asking.”

“Yeah, well I’m going to start asking,” Ryan grumbled under his breath, his gaze increasingly fierce and flashing a sort of protectiveness Tyler hadn’t seen aimed at himself in a long time.

“Mills…I mean, it’s fine, you don’t have to-”

Ryan shook his head, cutting him off.

“This was my team once, too, Enzo.  This was my pack.  If it’s been nearly a year and nobody has gotten you all into order yet, then I’ll be the one to do it.”

Tyler stared at him, blinked.  “I don’t think it’s that easy.  At least, they said it wasn’t.”

“Well they’re about to find out they’re wrong then.” Ryan was barely paying attention to him, positively scowling at the wall as his hand on Tyler’s neck loosened, sliding upwards to stroke absentmindedly through his hair. Tyler was admittedly a little too enthusiastic at the prospect of physical contact and struggled not to lean into the touch, temporary as it may be.

He shrugged.  “Okay then.”

Maybe they would listen to Ryan better than they had him.  He would have listened better to Ryan too.

Ryan frowned at him.  “That’s it? You don’t have anything else to say?”

Tyler thought about it for a moment, and then shook his head.  “No, I don’t think so.”

The look Ryan was giving him was assessing, and a little confused and a lot unnerving, prompting Tyler to ask, “Why, what do you want?”

Ryan shook his head and scratched his fingers over Tyler’s scalp, enough to make him want to let out a happy growl even though he had never been a wolf (Cody used to make that noise, when he was happy, that purring huffing growling sound).

“It’s nothing, Ty,” Ryan murmured.  “I’ll figure it out.  Don’t worry, I’ll fix this.”

Tyler shrugged.  It would be Ryan’s funeral, if the guys took exception to this.

Who knew, maybe they’d listen to Ryan better than to Tyler.

Or maybe everything would stay exactly status quo and stagnate in shit for another twenty or thirty years.

He really hoped not.  He missed feeling like a part of a special group that cared about each other a lot. He missed feeling like he was home.

He missed feeling like himself.

“You aren’t the alpha anymore, you know,” Tyler’s treacherous brain felt compelled to make him point out.  “You’re like, in a pack in another country in another conference on the other side of the continent.”

Ryan looked chagrined.  “I know. But if nobody else is going to do it, then somebody has to.”

Nobody  _had_  to, really, but that at least was not something Tyler was going to point out.

After all, an alpha for a day was better than no alpha at all.

“If you say so, man.”

“Hey, Enzo.”  Ryan caught his chin and made Tyler look up to meet his eyes. “It’s going to get better, okay?  It’s going to be alright.”

Tyler nodded, and he smiled, and he said nothing. There wasn’t really anything for him to say.


	28. Sabres: Fix-It Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11/10/15

The problem, Tyler knew, was that fixing a pack as broken as theirs (was it even his?) was a lot easier said than done, particularly when one had only the span of less than two days to achieve it.

He was known for being an optimist, but Tyler didn’t have very high hopes for Millsey’s success.

Ryan’s heart was in the right place, and probably his nostalgia too, but Tyler figured, if desperation hadn’t made the pack get back together by now (and God only knew Tyler himself had felt more than a little desperate and he didn’t have any innate pack imperatives), then a stern and sincere talking to from their former alpha who wouldn’t be around to enforce his own law probably wasn’t going to have much of an effect either.

It just…wasn’t worth getting his hopes up for, which was something that felt like it shouldn’t be so familiar to Tyler because getting his hopes up for everything was kind of his MO, or at least, it used to be.  After a while, he had to teach himself not to get excited and hopeful whenever his phone rang, and everything else in his life had just followed suit.

It felt safer, anyway, not getting his hopes up. He could understand why the pack liked it so much.

As it was, he expected to sit back with his thoroughly-down hopes and wait for Ryan to make his move.

He didn’t expect to be dragged along as a  _part_  of the move.

“I need your help,” Ryan said, appearing on Tyler’s doorstep later that day, hair still curling wet from his post-practice shower under the brim of his baseball cap.  The image of opening his door to find Ryan there waiting would have been so familiar, so painfully  _normal_  and welcome, if only his hat didn’t sport the wrong logo.

For not the first time in his Edmonton-based life, Tyler cursed the Canucks.

Silently, he stepped back from the door and gestured for Ryan to come inside. Ryan gave him an odd, quizzical look, but entered, shutting the door behind him.

“Uh, what do you need?” Tyler asked, eyes sliding away from Ryan to rest on the wall next to his shoulder.  He didn’t know where his trademark confidence had gone, but he wished it would come back soon.  It was so painfully abnormal to feel this uncomfortable around Ryan, a guy who had been one of his best friends for years, a wolf who had welcomed him into his pack without question.

Ryan seemed to sense it too, because he stopped from saying whatever he had been planning and instead asked, his sniffing of the air a little too loud to be subtle, “Are you feeling okay?”

Tyler nodded, or maybe he shrugged.  It was kind of a little of both at once.  Score one for economy of movement.

“Yeah.  Uh, yeah, sure.”

That only made Ryan frown more, which Tyler should have realized, but his Ryan-game was apparently way off anymore.  Or maybe it was just the wolf-thing.  Tyler hadn’t spent a lot of time alone with one in a while.

“You want to try that again?” Ryan asked, crossing his arms and putting on his best concerned-but-firm alpha voice, the one he used to use to wring confessions and apologies from the cubs when they were misbehaving (everyone expected it to be the other way around, but between him and Pommer, Ryan had totally been the disciplinarian. Jason had always claimed that if he had to wrangle the whole team as captain, then he could at least get the privilege of being the “fun alpha”).

Idly, Tyler wondered if Ryan ever still used that voice in his new pack. Once upon a time back when Ryan was traded, Cody had told Tyler all about the Vancouver pack, about how it was kind of weird and he could never really fit in there.  He’d said he thought Ryan would do okay because he was an established alpha and they’d respect him, but there was no way they’d be handing Ryan the pack.  They didn’t even really have cubs, aside from Cody, and he was long-gone from there now. Who would Ryan have to scold?

Tyler shrugged, like he could somehow both respond to Ryan and shake off his searching gaze all in one movement.

When that didn’t work, he summed up his best, most winning smile and said, “Hey man, I’m fine, I swear.”

He held up the smile for as long as he could, until Ryan’s stare because too uncomfortable, too piercing.

“I don’t know what you want,” Tyler sighed, shoulder slumping in defeat.

“Well, that’s a start,” Ryan said, taking a step closer and putting that familiar hand around the back of Tyler’s neck, guiding him to sit down on the sofa. “Do you want to try telling me why you’re acting so…”

“Responsible?  I’ve been told I’ve never been more mature.” It was, at least, a compliment that made his mother proud.

Ryan made a face and squeezed his neck.  “I was going to say ‘subdued.’  I don’t think I’ve ever seen you sit still for so long, or be so…” He waved his free hand around, looking for the right word, and before Tyler could interject with possible answers he continued, “Quiet. Succinct. You’d usually be talking my ear off right now about whatever was going through your head and now I can barely get you to say two full sentences to me.”

Tyler almost went to shrug again before realizing that would be supporting Ryan’s point.  “Hey, like I said, maybe I’m just growing up.  It’s not like any of you ever  _liked_  how much I talked anyway.”

Cody had professed to like it, had said repeatedly how he thought it was cute, and interesting, and funny.  But Cody had also used to like Tyler, and now he wouldn’t even acknowledge him, so Cody’s opinion didn’t count anymore.

You didn’t ignore somebody you thought was cute and interesting and funny for five months.

Ryan, of course, only frowned more, getting that pinched little wrinkle between his eyebrows that meant he was concerned.  “That’s not true. It’s just… _you_.”

“Annoying,” Tyler supplied helpfully.

“ _No_ , it’s just how you are. And that’s not annoying, or we wouldn’t have kept you around for so long.” He nudged Tyler’s side with his own and slid the hand on his neck to shake him lightly by his shoulder, offering up a smile that invited Tyler to smile back, to get in on the joke.  Tyler tried to, a wobbly, delayed affair, but he didn’t think he quite succeeded.

Thankfully, Ryan didn’t push that matter any further.

“Enzo, I’ve known you for what, six years now?”

“Seven,” Tyler mumbled, looking down at his hands.

“Seven, even better.  I think I’d recognize by now when you aren’t acting like yourself.  So do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

“Don’t you have to get back to your team soon?”

Ryan shook his shoulder again, this time sharply enough to make Tyler look at him. This wasn’t a friend giving a pep talk; this was an alpha drawing one of his own to heel.

“Don’t try to change the subject on me.  This is exactly what I’m talking about. You aren’t behaving like yourself.  Shit,  _none_  of the pack is acting like themselves.  You might not realize this, but considering it’s not like I’ve been anyone else’s alpha in the past year and a half my wolf still thinks of you guys as being  _mine_ , and let me tell you, it is really,  _really_ fucking upsetting to come back and find my pack is all…”

“A shambles?”  Tyler offered him a weak smile.  “Drew said that, once. The same way, too, he said that you and Jason would be ashamed to find that your pack was all a shambles thanks to him.”

Ryan drew himself up and looked at Tyler sharply.  “ _Drew_  did this?” His voice was naturally incredulous.  You couldn’t find more of a pack-oriented beta than Drew if you tried.

“No, geeze, that’s not what I meant.  The pack was just all…” Tyler gestured with his hands, making big, chaotic, expansive circles in the air. “Huge.  And messy. And he felt bad, ‘cause he thought he was screwing everything up.”

He gave Ryan a chagrined smile that felt brittle on his face.  “Turned out, he was pretty much the only thing holding everyone together.  After he left, and Mysey, and Jhonas…that’s when everything  _really_  turned to shambles.  The pack just like…gave up.  Dissolved.  Cody-” He choked around the name, still unused to talking about his constant specter outside of his head. “-Cody said that it hurt too much to keep trying, so they all decided to quit.”

Cody had also said that it would be okay because he and Tyler were all the pack that they needed, but that was obviously untrue, because Cody was so happy with his new pack in Nashville that he didn’t need Tyler at all anymore.

For a while, though, it had felt like Cody could be all that Tyler needed.

“You don’t just  _quit_  a pack.” Ryan’s frown was out full-force.  Tyler didn’t like putting that look on his face.  It made him feel like a disappointment. He had to stop himself from apologizing, blaming the urge on his own Canadian-ness.

Instead, he shrugged the weight of Ryan’s arm still resting warm and heavy around his shoulders.  It felt odd, new after so much time without much physical contact.  It felt nice.

“I don’t know.  They did. Cody – Cody said that the rookies stuck together for a little while after the big break-up or whatever, but after Nikita and Grigo got traded away, Risto and Z have kind of just been on their own. They don’t like it, but…” He shrugged again.

Ryan was staring at him again, too shrewd and discerning.  Tyler squirmed and looked down, feeling once more like a misbehaving pup. He’d forgotten about this.

“And you?” Ryan asked.

“What about me?”

“What do you do, without the pack?”

Tyler looked up from his careful study of his hands in his lap to give Ryan a sharp frown, expression displaying his confusion.

“What  _about_  me?”

Ryan leveled him a look that would usually mean he was about to roll his eyes at Tyler, under lighter circumstances.  “Believe it or not, Enzo, you’re part of the pack too.  God knows you fought hard enough for it.”

“I’m not…I don’t know.  It doesn’t matter.”

“Uh, yeah, it does.”

“No,” Tyler repeated, his voice harder now, and that was new, too, learning to inflect steel in his tone, to be quietly firm in his anger instead of loud and impassioned.  Directing any sort of anger at Ryan was a novelty in and of itself. “It doesn’t.  They don’t…I don’t get treated the same way as the other old pack members.  They treat me like I’m human, sometimes.  Like a human they don’t like that much, because they act like freaks about it and half the time it’s like we can be best friends and laughing and it’s normal and then they just freak out and disappear like somebody’s going to get them into trouble if they’re friends with me.  I’m not a wolf.  It doesn’t matter.”

“Or it matters to them a lot.  Think about it, Enzo: I can’t figure out why they thought splitting up the pack would  _ever_  be a good idea, but if they did, then it sounds like they’re taking that separation pretty seriously. Treating you like a human is like sneaking in a packmate – you being a human is their excuse for trying to get scraps of pack-time, I’ll bet.”

Tyler looked over at Ryan for a long moment and then shook his head, feeling his hair shifting with the movement and wishing that it was still long enough to hide his eyes.

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” he mumbled, feeling suddenly exhausted with the whole ordeal.  “Things have been…so different, since the trades.  They  _chose_  to be this way, Mills. They did this to themselves, and I didn’t get an opinion in it.  I’m not so sure they want to be saved.”

“It’s a good thing I’m not giving them a choice, then.” Ryan’s own steely voice and dedication were admirable, Tyler mused.  Questionable, but admirable.

God, since when did he start feeling so  _old_?

“You still haven’t answered my question.” Tyler could feel Ryan’s eyes still on him.  As if sensing this, Ryan’s hand suddenly rested heavily against the curve of his back.

“Pretty sure I did,” Tyler said, forcing himself to meet Ryan’s eyes as he spoke. It was a hard feat, when Ryan was insistent on being so authoritative and  _sincere_.

“You didn’t,” Ryan replied steadily. “You told me what was wrong with the pack, not what’s wrong with you.”

“They’re ignoring me-”

“That’s part of it, I’ll give you that. But…” Ryan sighed, his first real show of weakness since he started this whole weird whatever-it-was.  His fingers slid up to tug at the curls that were starting to grow out again along the nape of Tyler’s neck.

“I know you, Ty.  If you just thought the pack were all being idiots, you’d go in and harass them all until they got their act together because you wanted your hugs.  That’s how you were a good packmate, you know – you never let anyone get away with their bullshit, you just steamrolled right over them and went for what you wanted and you made them all go along for the ride. Don’t give me that look, it’s true. What about that time Roysy and Nate were fighting and you insisted you couldn’t sleep unless they both cuddled with you?”

“It was true,” Tyler grumbled.  Roysy and Gerbs had always been both extremely warm and extremely handsy, and both were fans of Tyler’s favorite method of pack-cuddles: lying on top of him until he felt warm and happy and safe and like he belonged.  The two of them arguing would have really dug into his cuddle-time.

“Okay, and when you made the cubs hug it out when they were upset with each other and wouldn’t let them leave until they did it?  When you would bully Jhonas into joining in pack nights on the road when he was being moody and Webby wasn’t there to do it?  You didn’t have to do any of that; that was all you being a good packmate.  Hell, you were one of the best betas I ever had.”

That gave Tyler pause. “I’m not a wolf,” he said for what felt like the hundredth time, confusion coloring his tone.

“No,” Ryan agreed with the beginnings of a smug little smile, “But you were a great beta all the same.  The guys all love you, and they listen to you, even if what you say sometimes is a little…off-the-wall.  You’re a part of the pack, and frankly, you do wonders for pack cohesion.  So yes, I think that if the only thing bothering you had been that the pack was acting up, you would have just gone in and forced them to work it out, one way or another.  I think something else is bothering you.”

Tyler swallowed hard.  His throat felt suddenly far too dry and Ryan’s hand far too large on his back. “It wouldn’t have worked like that. It doesn’t work like that.  They wouldn’t have – you didn’t see, they were so  _done_ , with everything, they were so despondent and upset and angry and Cody said-”

He cut himself off.  Ryan’s hand clenched in the back of his shirt, and he leaned forward, trying to catch Tyler’s eye.

“And what happened with Cody?”

Tyler shrugged (shrugging continued to be so much easier than words; he wondered why he’d ever liked talking better to begin with).  “I don’t know. You’d have to ask him.”

“I’m asking you.”

“And I don’t have the answer.”

“C’mon, Enzo, you must know-”

“I don’t, okay?”

Tyler’s words hung in the air, sharp and crystalline, a frozen shock to them both. He pulled harshly away from Ryan’s hand, a knee-jerk reaction, before the words fell and shattered and he was forced to relax.

“I don’t,” he said again, quiet, defeated.

“What – what happened?”  He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard Ryan so hesitant before.

A shrug felt so typical by now, but it fit so well.  “I don’t know.  Cody got bought out, and two days later he signed with Nashville and he packed up his stuff and he left and he hasn’t talked to me since.”

He didn’t need to be looking at Ryan to see his wide eyes or hear the shock coloring his voice.  “He hasn’t spoken to you  _at all_?  Since  _June_?”

“Yeah.” The shrug was more of a slump this time.  “I don’t know why.  I used to call him every day, and text, and snapchat, and email…he didn’t respond, and so I kept leaving him messages, but he  _still_  never responded.  After a while, I…gave up, I don’t know.  I still try, once in a while, but I’m trying to stop.  Jared says it’s not good to get so upset over someone who’s too stupid to reply to me, but I just…I don’t know.  I don’t know.  I guess Cody just…didn’t care as much as I did.  About being friends or…whatever.”

And he had forgotten this too, how  _easy_  it was to talk to Ryan, how natural.  He was always steady and reliable, willing to listen and accept what you had to say without judgment.  He really was a good alpha; for once, Tyler could recognize where Drew’s alpha-anxiety might have come from.  Ryan was a hard act to follow.

Ryan was quiet for a long time, which meant he must have been busy mulling over his words.  Tyler was willing to wait, picking intently at a hangnail on his thumb and trying to pretend it didn’t feel like he was waiting for someone to pass judgment.

“He cares,” Ryan said finally, his voice soft.  “I know he cares about you. I don’t know  _why_  he’s not talking to you, if he’s scared or misguidedly thinks he’s helping you or something, but I know he’s got to care about you.”

“Doesn’t feel like it,” Tyler mumbled.  To be quite honest, he was pretty sure he’d never felt more dejected in his life.

“It’s true.  Even if he’s being an idiot and can’t see it right now.  But even if he  _did_  somehow have a problem with you…would he really be worth changing your whole personality?  Just over him?”

Tyler’s head shot up of its own volition, finding himself absolutely  _glaring_ at Ryan.

“This isn’t  _intentional_ ,” he spat.  “I’m not trying to be fucking  _dramatic_  or something, I’m not putting on an act. This is just who I am, okay?  This is who I feel like being.  Everyone expects me to smile and make stupid jokes and be a freak for them to laugh at or something and you know, a lot of the time I just honestly don’t care, because that’s the person I feel like being, but right now, this is the person I am, and this is how I feel like being, so if everyone would just  _lay off_  about it, it’d be really awesome, thanks.”

Ryan was watching him with a look that was torn halfway between pity and calculation.

“I’m not trying to tell you to change how you feel,” Ryan began slowly. “I’m just saying this feels…uncharacteristic of you.  But I know more than anyone that there’s more than one side to you.  And I promise you, the guys don’t think of you that way. You aren’t there for them to laugh at.”

“I am,” Tyler insisted, feeling petulant.

“You’re not.  And if somebody gets that idea, one of the guys sets them straight pretty quick, wolf or human.  I told you, Ty, you’re respected in that locker room.  Nobody thinks any less of you for who you are.  We’re just…concerned for you, that’s all. You don’t act like this very often. You said someone else commented too?”

Tyler swallowed against the discomfort lodging itself in his throat.

“Yeah.  Marcus, he, uh, made some comments the other day, that I was being quiet or something. And Gio keeps asking if I’m okay or if I want to come over for dinner, captain-stuff like that.  And my mom thinks I’m being very mature; she’s proud.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being mature.  I just think that maybe this whole thing isn’t quite you – or not that ‘you’ that you would be if you were happy.”

Tyler raised an eyebrow, shooting for comedic and hitting somewhere above sad. “You don’t think I’m happy?”

“Not as much as you could be,” Ryan said easily, still painfully sincere.

Tyler shrugged again.  “I think I’m okay.  I’m not like  _sad_ , I don’t think.  I’m just…” Another shrug.  “I don’t know.  Just doesn’t seem worth getting excited over everything, I guess.  Had a lot to think about.”

With a knowing look, Ryan asked, “And some of those thoughts have had to do with Cody?”

Tyler tried not to squirm. “Some.  A lot, maybe, I guess.  Cody and the pack. It’s just like…I don’t know,  _somebody’s_  gotta worry about them, even if they won’t.  And I’m not even  _mad_  at Cody – like, okay, I’m still kinda mad, because it’s a total dick move to just ignore me like that when he won’t even tell me what I did wrong, but now I’m just worried about him, too.  I just want to know that he’s okay.”

Ryan squeezed his shoulder again.  “And that’s why you’re a good packmate, Ty.  And that’s why I thought that maybe you could help me set things right again.”

Before Tyler could interrupt, Ryan held up a hand.  “Hear me out: I know they’ve all been ignoring each other, and you, a lot of the time.  But I’ve been gone a long time, and I’m only going to be here for another day – they aren’t really going to want to listen to me, because they know I’ll just be gone soon anyway.  But with you there – they’ll listen to you.  They’ll give you a chance. And I think, with you backing me up, we might be able to get somewhere with them.”

It took Tyler a long time to respond, mulling over the idea in his head. Finally, he spoke.

“They’re gonna be assholes about it,” he grumbled darkly.

He was surprised when Millsey barked out a delighted laugh.

“I’m counting on it.”


	29. Sabres: Fix-It Part III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11/11/15

Given that it was Ryan’s first night back in town in a year and a half, it was a foregone conclusion that he would go out to dinner with some of the old guys from the team.  Of course, as the media loved to point out, only four guys technically remained from the team that Ryan had left, but that didn’t count guys like Mouls or Mac (and God, Mac had technically be around the organization just as long as Tyler himself), who had been traded but chose to come back, or guys who had been in the AHL a lot of Ryan’s final season like Mark or Rasmus or Johan.

In the end, Ryan’s “welcome back” dinner contained a sizeable group of players, not  _everyone_  that Ryan had played with, but a lot.  It just so happened that Ryan made sure that the wolves he’d played alpha to were all invited. (Sam, therefore, wasn’t there; Tyler couldn’t decide if it felt weird or not.)

And they were all doing their damndest to act like nothing was wrong, smiling like not a single thing had changed since Ryan left Buffalo, and maybe that’s what they wanted to think.  Maybe they wanted that illusion, if only for a night, that they had an alpha back.  It would work, Tyler knew; Ryan, for whatever reason, seemed oddly just as desperate to have that connection back, no matter how temporary.

Tyler couldn’t quite get himself into that mindset. He tried – he wanted so badly to be able to just put away his misgivings and pretend that for the night, everything was normal and okay – but part of his newfound look on life was that he couldn’t really pretend to himself anymore; he couldn’t lie to himself, not about something important like this.

So instead he followed through with another part of his new affect, the part that seemed to unnerve everyone the most: he was quiet, he sat back, and he observed.

Underneath their attempts at normalcy, the wolves were uncomfortable. That was easy enough to see, once you’d spent enough time around wolves to know just from looking at them who was happy and who was grumpy and who needed an extra hug. They were happy to see Ryan, of course, smiling at him so brightly it hurt because it all had a time limit, but they weren’t happy the way their human teammates were: their happiness was brittle, nervous.  They were afraid of being found out.

Tyler wondered why they would try to pretend so hard for Ryan, when he was one of the few people who they might see as being able to help them fix things. Maybe it was because they wanted to pretend that badly that things were like the old days. Maybe it was because they were embarrassed.

Either way, in their position, Tyler would have spoken up and said something. He would have asked for help.  Or at least, the old Tyler would have, if Ryan hadn’t already found him out just by looking at him.

But Tyler wasn’t necessarily in their position anyway, because this wasn’t his pack.  Not really. Tyler was a vestige of an old pack, a leftover, like an in-joke passed down long after anyone could remember its original meaning.  A punch line without a purpose.  If a new alpha had come in and set up a new pack system, Tyler wouldn’t have been a part of it.  He had been the pack’s human, once upon a time, but that had been Ryan and Jason’s pack, with Roysy and Nate and Jochen and Mysey and Goose.  And he’d stuck around in Drew’s pack, because it still had Webby and Mysey and Jhonas, and because Drew himself was a vestige too, of Ryan and Jason and of the pack that they had grown up in.

But if a new, foreign alpha had come in, somebody not raised in the Sabres pack who entered it in its current state and took over (and that wasn’t an unusual occurrence at all; actually, Cody had expected it might happen) they would have had full rights not to include Tyler in the pack. They might have gotten angry that he had been allowed in the pack in the past – Cody had used to say, back before the buyout, back when he’d thought he’d still be on the team with Tyler this year, that if a new wolf came to the team, Tyler wasn’t to let on that he knew about wolves until Cody had deemed them safe – until Cody had made sure that they wouldn’t hurt him if they knew that he knew.

Tyler had used to scoff at him, arrogant and invincible, but now – well.  Now, he wondered if he would be part of any new pack the Sabres formed, regardless of the feelings of their new alpha.  He wasn’t a part of the pack, not in the ways that counted, no matter what Ryan said. He was just the weirdo who attached himself to them, because he liked to hug and he thought they did too – or rather, he thought that hugging was the only thing going on.  Now, he knew where he stood, or where he didn’t stand.  He knew that his position in the pack was dependent on the acceptance of those already in it, and he knew that that acceptance could be rescinded at a moment’s notice.

So he didn’t hold any sort of illusions about his relationship with the pack or his influence over it, and he didn’t expect much to come of it, but he went along with Ryan’s plan anyway.  He tried to enjoy himself at dinner, and he watched how the pack interacted with Ryan, almost desperate for his attention, for his approval. They were all hurting, going it on their own, whether or not they would admit it.

Wolves were not meant to be solitary creatures.

Nobody said humans couldn’t be, though.

No matter how awkward they felt, their desire to be with Ryan won out over whatever issues the wolves had about being around each other, even if Mike conspicuously didn’t acknowledge the others and Marcus and Zemgus steadfastly avoided making physical contact when they ended up getting seated next to each other.  And Ryan didn’t comment on it, not only because there were humans present, but because he wanted to enjoy his night with his old teammates too.

That’s why he’d told Tyler that they would wait until after dinner to enact their plan.

It wasn’t even much of a plan, really.  Under better circumstances, Tyler would be all over this sort of thing, making secret agent comments, coming up with codenames.

As it was, he mostly just mused over how the “plan” should probably be downgraded to more of an idea, really.

Going back to Webby’s house to chew him out didn’t really make for a highly exciting “plan.”

But it was what Ryan had worked out and what he’d asked Tyler to help him with, and so Tyler played along, because he had never been able to say no to Ryan even before he knew him as a werewolf, though he  _did_ have some very convincing puppy eyes.

So they said goodbye to the team with assurances to talk one last time after the game tomorrow night before Ryan had to fly out for New Jersey, and Ryan asked Mike if it would be okay for him and Tyler to follow Mike back to his house.

It was clear from Mike’s face that he was uncomfortable, that he knew something was up and felt like he should refuse, but if Drew had been the consummate beta, then Mike was the cookie-cutter template of a beta, and there was no way he could say no to a direct request from someone he still saw in a way as his alpha, especially not when trying so hard to appease him.

That was how Tyler found himself sitting on Mike’s couch for the first time in over six months, rolling a lukewarm bottle of beer back and forth between his hands and picking absently at the label while Ryan small-talked his way to the point.

Eventually it was Mike himself who finally asked what was going on.  Tyler wasn’t surprised, seeing as it was pretty conspicuous for Ryan to single Mike out as the one guy he wanted to talk to privately  _with_  Tyler.

“Mills, it’s not that I’m not happy to see you,” Mike began, glancing back and forth between Ryan and Tyler, “It’s just…what is this, man?”

Thankfully Ryan didn’t attempt to keep up some sort of pretense.  He sighed, but with a small, kind smile on his face.  Tyler wasn’t sure he’d have been able to pull that one off himself.

“We need to talk about the pack, Webs.”

Tyler wouldn’t have needed to have been looking at Mike to see his reaction, because he could sense it all the same, the way the room was suddenly filled with tension and felt ten degrees cooler.  As it was, he  _had_ been looking at Mike, so he got to watch as his spine stiffened, shoulders growing tight, how his face just shuttered.

Cody had gotten that look when he first learned about the trade.

Tyler really needed to stop relating things back to Cody.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Mike said. Apparently he wasn’t big on maintaining pretenses either, but then again, he never had been.  Mike was usually noted for being a pretty genuine and realistic guy: what you saw was what you got.

So of course in this case, what they got was two hundred and twenty pound defenseman with a face like impending death if they tried to keep pursue that line of questioning.

And of course, there was no way Ryan  _wasn’t_  going to pursue that line of questioning.

“We both know that’s not true.” Ryan’s voice was calm but firm, that earlier steel making a return.  “I know what happened with the pack.”

The  _because Tyler told me_  went unspoken, but Mike sent Tyler an accusatory glare anyway. Tyler met it head-on, staring apathetically and refusing to react; this was all shit Mike should have dealt with six months ago, anyway.  It wasn’t Tyler’s fault that the pack was in this situation, he didn’t make this choice.

Tyler’s reaction or lack thereof seemed to unnerve Mike just a little, because he frowned and looked away before steadying himself and turning his full attention back to Ryan.

Huh.

“Then you know that there’s nothing to talk about,” Mike repeated.

Like watching a werewolf ping-pong match, Tyler swung his head back towards Ryan.  Somehow in the course of the last minute or so both Ryan and Mike had come to a stand, leaving Tyler sitting between them, now once again forgotten.

“Mike-” Ryan’s sentence broke off and he shook his head.  “You can’t just quit on a pack like that.  That’s not how it works.”

Tyler could tell right away that that probably wasn’t the best thing to have said, especially given how Mike’s hands curled into fists and his eyes took on a dangerous quality.

“You have no idea,” he growled, his voice lowering, “What it’s like.  You aren’t the one who’s been left behind year after year, by your captains and your alphas and your pack.  You got to do the leaving.  A pack isn’t supposed to be like that.  A pack isn’t supposed to fall apart and get taped back together every year.  So don’t you come back here all high and mighty off your perfect new pack and tell me how it all fucking  _works_.”

His voice was louder now, his anger palpable as he took a step towards Ryan, and Tyler had never seen him so angry, not at a friend. Not at pack.

But Ryan had always brought his zen-goalie thing into his behavior as an alpha, and it showed here as he stood his ground, staring down Mike as if he didn’t have fifty pounds and years of frustration and pain on him.

“To start with, because you brought it up, my current pack has nothing to do with what’s going on here or why I’m talking to you right now.”

“Bullshit,” Mike spat, taking yet another step closer until they were only scant feet apart, Tyler curled up on the couch next to them, most assuredly forgotten.  “We all know that Vancouver’s supposed to be so fantastic with its great alphas and great pack members and-”

And Ryan snapped.

“It’s  _supposed_  to be and it’s  _not_. It’s fucked up too, okay Webs?  Is that what you want me to say?  Because it’s the truth.  Vancouver is just as fucked up as Buffalo in its own special way, and I’m not here trying to  _help_  you guys because I think I’m coming from some sort of moral fucking high-ground, I’m here because no matter how bad things got with this team and with this pack, I never once regretted my time with you guys.  I fucking  _love_  you guys, and I miss you, and every time the full moon comes around in Vancouver my wolf has fucking  _kittens_  because it can’t find where its pack went.  Is that what you wanted to hear?

“Vancouver is fucked up and no matter how hard I try I can’t get my wolf to drink the Kool-Aid and go along with it, but nobody in the pack seems to realize  _because it’s already fucked up_.  The one way, the  _one fucking way_  I can calm myself down and keep from just chewing my own fur off is by telling myself that everything is okay back here, that all of you guys are in good hands and doing well and that it’s okay to move on because you guys have too.  And then I come back here and everything has fallen to utter shit and nobody’s talking to each other and  _I can’t be here to fix it_.  So yeah, a lot of this is about me, but it’s about you guys too.  You guys are  _miserable_  and instead of doing something easy to fix it you’re all just wallowing in it. What the  _fuck_  is that?”

In all of his years with the Sabres, Tyler had never seen Ryan that truly, righteously angry.  The closest time was after the Lucic hit, but even that had been more…directed.  This was just vast, uncontrollable hurt anger, the kind born of desperation and protectiveness.  It was sad, but heartening, too, to at least know that the separation wasn’t any easier on Ryan than it had been on the rest of them.

Mike was staring at Ryan.  His face had lost its hardness, its anger, and in its place was a kind of vulnerability that Mike rarely let himself show, especially in front of the pack when he always tried to be strong for the others (at least, when they’d had a pack).  Instead he was looking at Ryan the way he used to, years ago, back when he and Tyler were rookies together just starting out in the NHL.  Tyler realized then that for all everyone thought of Ryan as Zemgus’s first alpha or Rasmus’s first alpha or Mark and Marcus’s first alpha, he was Mike’s first team alpha too: Mike had been drafted in 2006, but he played in juniors that season and would have only ever briefly met Danny. Ryan and Jason would have been his first alphas, and they and all of the pack members he had grown up with had all left him in rapid fashion.

It always came back to the abandonment issues in the end, Tyler thought with a sigh.  He refused to think about how even though he wasn’t a wolf, he himself probably had some of the worst abandonment issues of the bunch.

“I’m sorry,” Mike said.  His words nearly made Tyler jump in surprise; they felt so loud in the oppressive silence that had fallen, even though his voice was hoarse and strained and his words were only a step away from a whisper.

“I don’t…it just got so  _bad_.”  He was shaking his head now, looking down though his eyes were unseeing.  “I couldn’t be – when everyone else was having issues, I was the steady one.  I had to be the one to look after the older guys when you were taking care of the cubs, after Jason left, and I had to be the one to hold Drew together when  _you_  left, and then Drew and Mysey and Jhonas all left at once and suddenly the onus was on me to take care of an entire pack of cubs and barely-adults and I was so fucking upset I could barely  _think_  straight and I-”

He looked up now, and his eyes were burning bright.

“-and I’m not an alpha, Millsey.  I’m not meant to be an alpha, and we all know it.  We all know it, and yet I’m the one everyone was looking to for help, I was always the one who had to be their support and monitor their emotions and I just couldn’t be their rock anymore, okay?  They were all looking to me to make things better just because I’ve been around the longest and I couldn’t fucking do it because I was so fucking  _done_  with packs, with everyone leaving all the time and picking up the pieces of other people’s messes and never being able to talk about how fucking miserable I was. I had to be there for them and I had fucking  _nobody_  left.  Drew was gone, and Jhonas-”

He broke off, shaking his head, his face a mask of hurt and anger and disgust.

“He left,” he croaked.  “He left, and he said he didn’t want to go but boy did he never look back.  He went off with his new team and he didn’t even fucking  _talk_  to me when we played them.  The one person who was supposedly there to support me and as soon as he got an easy break he was out of there like he was on fire.  And I was supposed to just, just fucking turn around and tell the kids that everything’s going to be okay?  How the fuck was I supposed to do that?  I couldn’t fucking  _lie_  to them.  Three of them were gone by the end of the season, it wasn’t like there was any fucking stability anyway! I figured we were all better off not getting attached anymore, and they all obviously agreed because it’s not like they tried to fight me on it.”

“They didn’t agree,” Ryan said in that same calm but insistent voice.  His eyes were locked onto Mike’s like they were pinning him down; Tyler would have gotten uncomfortable, but it only seemed to draw Mike in.

“You don’t know that.”

“I do.  They miss having a pack just as much as you do – they  _want_  to be in a pack.  They’re just as lost as you are about this, and they’re afraid.  They need someone to guide them.”

Mike shook his head again.  “I can’t be that person.  I can do – the background stuff, the support roles.  I’m not cut out to be a leader.”

“You’re already a leader on the team; you have been for years, even if you don’t have a letter to show for it.  I think you could be a leader for the pack, too.”

But something about that had been wrong, because now Mike looked angry again.  “I get scratched regularly, I go down a defensive pairing every time a new d-man is signed – I don’t even know if I’ll be on the fucking  _team_  next year.  What the hell kind of leader is that?  I’m not going to take over just so they can ship me out by the end of the season. The kids are better off getting used to not having a pack, that way it won’t fuck them up so badly if I go.”

“And you?” Ryan said lowly, frighteningly composed. “It won’t hurt you so much either, will it?”

“You know what, fuck you,  _yeah_ , it won’t hurt me as much to leave.  Are you happy now?”

Tyler nearly stood, nearly brought attention to himself just to get them to take a few steps back from each other and stop looking so much like they were going to shift right in front of him and have it out, fur and blood and all.  Mike certainly looked ready enough for it.

But Ryan was still looking as tranquil and placid as ever, absorbing Mike’s words but refusing now to retaliate after his initial outburst.

“I’m not  _happy_ , Mike.  I just want you to think about this.  In this business, you never know when you could be traded, or a member of your pack could be traded.  It’s the same with your human teammates.  And God knows, I know it fucking hurts when somebody leaves, or when you have to leave. But as clichéd as it is, it’s part of the business, and you have to accept it along with everyone else.  You get to have some of the closest, best packs in the world, but you might have to leave them as a moment’s notice.  You know, part of me was ready to leave Buffalo and try something new, and part of me couldn’t imagine myself on another team. Eventually, that decision was made for me, and I think it’s working out okay.  I was  _never_  ready to leave the pack, but it happened anyway, and I knew it was something that would probably happen, and I have to accept that and try my best to move on.  This here, this is me doing a terrible job of moving on, but I think this is something I have to do if I ever want to be at peace somewhere else.

“You can’t live your life worried about what might happen next.  You can’t make your decisions that way.  Trust me, if every alpha did that, they’d never want to take care of a pack for the fear that they might be taken away.  That kind of connection…I don’t think you ever get over your old packs, as an alpha.  That’s why so many of them try not to contact their old packs too much after they leave – if there isn’t a clean break, you can never get out of that mindset of being their alpha and trying to micromanage their lives, even if there’s already a new alpha in place.”

Mike stared at him blankly, some of his fight seeming to have left him, making him look deflated and exhausted.  He looked like he could use a hug.

“Then why are you even here?”

Ryan quirked a small, sad, chagrined smile. “I already said, I’m doing a terrible job.  And I think that given the way the last few years have gone for you guys, I owe it to you to try to help you out.”  He put a hand on Mike’s shoulder; Mike’s flinch was barely perceptible, but the way he then melted into the grasp was obvious even to Tyler.

“And you were right,” Ryan continued, “You’ve been strong for this pack for a long, long time, and I know that hasn’t been easy for you, and I know we’re all thankful to you for it – me, Jason, Drew and everyone else who’s been through here this past couple of years.  I know it seems impossible to have to do it all yourself, especially when you’re being forced into a position you don’t think fits you, and that’s why I don’t want you to do it alone.”

Mike gave Ryan a careful, assessing look.

“You’re not even in the same  _time zone_  for most of the year-”

“I wasn’t talking about me,” Ryan said, with a hint of that same stupid little smirk he’d given Tyler earlier that morning.

“I was talking about Tyler.”

And suddenly, both sets of eyes swung back to Tyler, sitting with his hands folded politely in his lap, staring up at them with wide eyes from the couch.

_Well_ , he thought,  _showtime._


	30. Sabres: Fix-It Part IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11/19/15

“I don’t know what you mean,” Webby said, shaking his head.

To be honest, Tyler didn’t quite know what he meant either, and he’d already been briefed on the plan.

Ryan just kept on smiling as easy as ever; Tyler just hoped it really would be as easy as all that.

“I think that you should take over as the alpha of the pack – and I think that Tyler could be your co-alpha.”

Mike’s eyes slid from Ryan to Tyler, and then back to Ryan again, with a look on his face as if he’d just been asked to teach a ferret how to salsa.

“And that sounds like a good idea to you?”

Tyler couldn’t even muster up a token protest, let alone his trademark righteous indignation, because frankly he kind of agreed.

“Yes,” Ryan said, still acting like everything was painfully simple.  “Look, I know it’s unconventional-”

“Unconventional?” Mike yelped.  “No, a co-alpha system is  _unconventional_ , but most people will accept it because it’s better than no alpha. A pack with a co-alpha who’s a  _human_  is downright  _sacrilege_  to pretty much every single wolf, ever.  Mills, how can you – you  _know_  how wolves can be about humans, you  _know_  what – what can happen if they find out, and you think that one of them being an  _alpha_  is a good idea?”

He glanced at Tyler again and grimaced in discomfort. “No offense, Enzo. It’s just…”

“I know,” Tyler said, shrugging gamely.  “I kind of thought the same thing.” He looked meaningfully at Ryan.  “But…I figure, I’ve never been known for my good decision-making skills in the first place, so like, what’s one more bad decision, eh?”

“One more bad decision that could get you  _killed_ , Enzo.  This isn’t a game, this is your fucking  _life_ , and if somebody found out that you knew about wolves, that you were allowed to be an  _alpha_  to a pack of wolves – Tyler, some of them would just kill you right then on principle, and other wolves wouldn’t judge them for it because they would be protecting our secret.  It’s a  _violation_ , and it’s so stupidly dangerous, I can’t even believe Ryan would think to suggest it-”

“I was  _thinking_ ,” Ryan interrupted, stepping closer to Mike again, “That this might be our only option.  You don’t think you’re ready to be an alpha on your own, and you’re right that you might never be, but you’re a really good beta. Tyler isn’t a wolf, but he’s been in this pack longer than everyone else except for you, he knows how packs work and how wolves behave, and the guys like him – the guys  _respect_  him.  He’s already a leader of his own sort in the pack even if he’s not a wolf – I know you know how well they all listen to him when he wants them to do something.  I think if you pair a really good beta with a human the pack already sees as a leader, you can get a successful partnership of co-alphas.

“And I  _know_  that it’s dangerous, but if you’re both willing to take a chance on this, I think you two could be really good for the pack.”

He looked at them both beseechingly.  The conviction of his words was striking; Ryan had a way about him that when he was really passionate about something, he could get you to agree to anything – hence why Tyler was here in the first place. Ryan could make you believe that anything was possible, up to and including becoming the human co-alpha to a wayward werewolf pack.

A distant part of Tyler’s mind made a note of that as the potential title of a children’s book:  _The Littlest Alpha and His Pack of Wayward Werewolves_.  The alpha part had a nice ring to it.

He’d have to remove the “littlest” part though.  It was diminutive and wildly inaccurate.

Tyler looked over at Mike and shrugged, smiling slightly.  “I’m game if you are.”

Mike stared at him, and then shook his head.  “No. No. We aren’t doing this.” He turned to Ryan. “I don’t know what you told him, but you need to cut that shit out.  You can’t go making him think that-”

“Whoa, hey.” Tyler stood and stepped between Mike and Ryan, less to defend Ryan and more to remind Mike that he was, in fact, right there. “He didn’t  _make_  me think anything.  I mean, he gave me some ideas I hadn’t come up with on my own because I’m not like, zen-werewolf-goalie-Jesus or whatever, but he didn’t  _make_  me do anything – believe it or not, I actually do know how to take in information and make decisions for myself.  I  _chose_  to agree to this, because I think I might be able to help the pack here, and I want to do that – I want to help.”

He took a step closer to Mike, holding out his arms, palms up like an offering.

“You guys are like – you’re like a family, man, and for a while, for the last couple of years, I got to be part of that family, and no matter how bad things got I just had like a pile of fluffy guys I could come hug until things felt better, and it’s just…I care about you guys. You’ve done a lot for me, taking me in even though we all know I’m the team weirdo, and I want to help you guys too. And I don’t care if it’s dangerous, because just hanging out with you guys is apparently dangerous, and I’m sorry man, but that’s totally outdated bullshit, you guys need to work on your xenophobia because you’re like  _way_  behind the times.  But I’m willing to see past it, for you guys, because you’re my boys.”

Ryan was smiling, that special kind of proud little smile that made Tyler feel all kinds of squirmy pleased excitement.  Mike had a soft look on his face.

Quietly he said, “You aren’t the team weirdo.”

Tyler snorted and shook his head. “That’s not true, but I appreciate the effort.”

Mike looked inclined to argue, and then, thinking better of it, shook his head. “It’s not that I don’t think you can do things for yourself.  God knows, we’ve all seen that you know how to get what you want.  It’s just…this is putting yourself out there to be found out.  This is like putting up a giant flashing sign to let everyone know that you know about wolves, and if somebody tries something, we might not be there to protect you, and I couldn’t live with that and I  _know_  the kids couldn’t either.  It’s not that I think you’d be  _bad_  at this or something, though I still think the entire idea is pretty far-fetched.  I don’t want you to get hurt because of us.”

It wasn’t like Mike was wrong: Tyler had yet to see it in action, but there was a heavy stigma against humans being allowed to know about werewolves, to the point where pretty much every single wolf he’d ever met acted like if any wolf outside of the pack found out about Tyler it’d be tantamount to his death sentence.  Considering they weren’t exactly always subtle about Tyler’s involvement, he was pretty sure they were wrong, but he knew that if their fear was so universal there had to be some sort of truth behind it.

But then, Tyler played a game where guys skated around with knives strapped to their feet and crashed into each other on purpose, knife-bearing legs often flailing all over the place, and he took that risk every night because the threat of an injury was vastly outweighed by the fact that he was playing  _hockey_. And in the same way, even if his very presence with the pack served as a threat to his wellbeing and playing at being an alpha to the pack would only exacerbate that problem, it didn’t really matter to him, because the pack was more than worth the potential to save his own skin if some hypothetical wolf chose to take exception to him.

It was a dilemma for the wolves, maybe, but it wasn’t for Tyler.

So, taking in a deep breath and standing up straight, he said with utmost sincerity, “Frankly, Michael, I don’t give a damn.”

Ryan laughed, because he had always appreciated Tyler’s sense of humor and amazing one-liners.

Webby looked…well, not pleased, but he was smiling, though it was maybe a little pained.  But it was still a smile, and that was a start.

“I should have figured as much,” Mike said, half to himself.  “I’m not…I’m still not happy with it, and I’m really not even prepared to address the idea of my role in all of this, but I should have known that at least you of all people wouldn’t have the sense of self-preservation to let something like imminent danger dissuade you.”

“Damn straight.”

“And…” Now there was a hint of a sparkle in Mike’s eyes, something that made Tyler think that maybe, things were about to go right for once.  It would be a first.

“After all, you never doubt the Kid.”

As if on cue Ryan chorused, “The Kid!”, and Tyler couldn’t help the smile blooming across his face, because for a moment, it felt like old times, back at the very beginning when they had a full pack of happy wolves and the biggest concern was about who got to cuddle with whom.

It would be nice, if the kids got to experience something like that.

He held out his arms to Ryan and Mike and flashed a toothy smile, demanding the hugs he felt owed.

“Damn right you never doubt the Kid.”

~~~

There were a lot of kinks in their plan.

Mike, now reassured of Tyler’s involvement, was still extremely unsure of his  _own_  involvement, to the point where Tyler woke up to a series of texts the next morning outlining his dilemma as he waffled back and forth between “this is a terrible idea we can’t do this” to “no wait never mind I’m fine it’s okay” and back to “I changed my mind I’m not cut out for this.”

Tyler, ever one for consistency (he wanted to show he was a reliable co-alpha, after all), replied every time with “its all cool bro i got u.”  He was sure Mike appreciated the sentiment.

Because Ryan couldn’t actually be their zen-wolf-goalie-Jesus guide forever (apparently trying to win his game against the Sabres that night actually  _meant_  something to him, that traitor), Mike and Tyler were left to figure out the situation for themselves the morning of the game.  No matter the outcome, Ryan was going to have to get on a plane to New Jersey pretty much immediately afterwards, meaning he wouldn’t have time to help them out in breaking the news to the pack outside of a few quick words of encouragement, which sadly could only do so much.

Which led to their other biggest problem: the cubs.  Before they could even broach the idea to the pack, who might completely reject it, they had to get them all to meet privately away from the team, something they hadn’t done in six months.  It became abundantly clear that Mike couldn’t be the one to do that, because they were all kind of afraid of him (without reason – even if he was upset, Mike wasn’t ever going to rip their heads off, even if he didn’t want to talk to them – but Tyler saw the hurt in his eyes when he realized that the pack might be too fearful of him to agree to go anywhere with him), and therefore, Tyler would have to be the one to gather the troops.

He waited until after the game – a completely improbable win based on shot totals but  _damn_  was it a fun one, with Rasmus’s game-winning goal with seventeen seconds left in the game, a goal that came from Tyler’s beautiful zone-entry and assist.  The locker room was electric with the excitement of a win, and the cubs in particular were vibrating with energy, especially Risto, preening under the praise and attention of his teammates.

Tyler was going to have to be the one to put a damper on their happy feelings, because the future of the pack was at stake.  Hopefully doing this when they were happy from a win would be better off than when they were sad from a loss.

Never let it be said that he wasn’t taking his newfound role in the pack seriously.

He got Marcus first, because their stalls were next to each other and Tyler was known for his economy.

“Hey, man.” He stood in front of Marcus and moved close enough to be uncomfortable, effectively pinning him to his stall without touching him. “We’re going to Webby’s house after this.”

Marcus’s eyes were wide.  “What? No, we can’t – you  _know_  we can’t do that-”

Tyler prodded him in the chest and stared up at him (but like not  _that_  far up) with an expression he was sure was deadly serious.  “Webby’s house.  Be there, loser.”

With that, he moved on to his next victim, leaving a stunned Marcus in his wake. He didn’t look back, because it would ruin the effect, but he really hoped Marcus was actually going to listen to him and show up.

The next two were Mark and Rasmus, because their stalls were also next to each other (despite their wolfy weirdness about each other, they’d still been playing well as defensive partners; as Tyler saw it, it sounded like the wolves doth protest too much about no longer being a pack – his job was getting easier by the second).

He planted himself firmly in front of the two, clearing his throat to make sure they were paying attention to him, in case standing a foot away from them wasn’t message enough.

“We’re going to Webby’s tonight. Be there or be square.”

Rasmus’s eyes widened and Mark started turning pink.

“But I-”

“Be there.” Tyler pointed at Mark before slowly, slowly sliding over to Rasmus. “Or be square.  And you don’t want to be a square.”

He turned on his heel and walked away before they could protest further. He was pretty sure he nailed it with those two at least.

And now for the last two.

Sammy was easy. All Tyler had to do was walk up to him, throw his arm over Sam’s shoulders, fluff up the back of his hair and say, “Hey, we’re going to Webby’s tonight, got it?”

Sam’s face lit up like Tyler had just revealed that Santa was indeed real and all the other kids had just been lying to him because they got coal (all likely true), and he nodded quickly.

“Oh thank God,” he breathed, his shoulders relaxing with the sigh as if a weight had been lifted, finally shrugging off that wide-eyed lost look he’d been wearing since the preseason.  “I’ve missed you guys.”

It was what Tyler had expected; Sam had been openly confused and distressed about the pack falling apart while he was gone, and he was more than ready for some pack time.  He was going to be their easiest convert tonight by far.

“Good boy.” Tyler squeezed the back of his neck and ruffled his hair again; the smile Sam gave him was so bright-eyed and pleased that Tyler felt guilty that any of them had left him alone for so long.  Drew would be so pissed.  Sam was his first cub, and they all knew how Drew felt about creating abandonment complexes in cubs.

Luckily, they were about to fix that, right after one last person.

Striding up to Zemgus, Tyler grabbed him by the shoulders and took advantage of his surprise to make sure that their eyes met.

“We,” he said slowly, to make sure he couldn’t be misunderstood, “Are going to Webby’s house tonight.  Be there, or…actually, there is no ‘or,’ just show up, or I’m going to  _make_  you show up, and you won’t like that.”

Zemgus made a face, appearing nonplussed.  “What would you even do?”

Tyler paused for a moment. “ _Things_. Terrible things.  You don’t want to know.  You’d better just show up.”

“I don’t think I want to-”

“ _Things._ ”

“I – fine, whatever, okay.”

“Good boy.” Tyler patted the side of his face, kind of just smearing his palm around the way he did to [welcome Jack to the team](http://swedishgoaliemafia.tumblr.com/post/131845188219), and went back to his own stall, ignoring the shell-shocked gazes of the wolves around them (and Sammy’s eager smile) to shoot some finger-pistols in Mike’s direction.

Damn right you never doubt the Kid.

~~~

Tyler tried not to be too smug in the face of Mike’s wide-eyed stare as every member of the pack made their appearance at his house later that evening, just as Tyler had requested.  Everyone but Tyler and Mike was seated in Mike’s living room, perched uncomfortably primly on the edge of their seats like they were afraid of their welcome – well, except for Sam. Sam was nestled happily back into the cushions, squirming around in what was either excitement, a desire to wipe more of Webby’s scent on himself, or some combination of the two; when he saw Tyler looking at him, he beamed.

At least  _somebody_  was happy to see him. Rasmus was watching Sam like he was a little hopeful but afraid of that same hope, but the rest of them mostly looked like they were thinking Mike and Tyler had finally cracked and were planning to bury them in the backyard.

Please, that would take way too much effort.

“We are gathered here today,” Tyler began, with all the ceremonial air he felt the situation deserved, “Because you little shits all need to get your acts together.  Except you, Sam, four for you, Sam.”

Sam, if anything, looked like he might burst from happiness; Zemgus gave him an offended look and scooted away from him on the couch.

The group, including Mike, stared at Tyler; Tyler stared back, because if there was one thing he could win, it was staring contests that ultimately made his opponents feel uncomfortable.

Eventually, Rasmus raised his hand.

Such a nice boy.

“Yes?”

“Uh.  I didn’t really…I didn’t do anything.”  When Tyler didn’t say anything, he flushed, which totally clashed with his hair, and continued, “I don’t think I have anything to, um, get together.”

Now both Zemgus  _and_  Marcus were sending him offended looks.

“Everyone’s a little guilty,” Tyler said, drawing the attention back to himself. “Myself included.  Except for Sam, because he wasn’t here in the spring. Sam is the only pure one left.”

Now everybody looked offended, except for Sam, who was just about glowing.  _Glow, little glowworm_ , Tyler thought, while making a mental note about potential nicknames.

“We all dropped the ball, big time.  Everything sucked, and instead of picking ourselves up and making it work, we just threw our hands in the air and said, ‘Jesus, take the wheel!’, and Jesus drove us off an overpass into a bus full of schoolchildren, which is why you don’t trust Jesus to drive you: he doesn’t have a license.   _You_ ,” he said, pointing at the pack, “Have a license.”

Raising his hand again, Rasmus said, “I don’t have an American license.”

“God, it’s a  _metaphor_ , Risto, work with me.  _Jesus_.” He wondered if it was okay to invoke Jesus’s name after insulting his driving skills.

“What I was  _saying_  in my  _metaphor_  is that every one of us here has, and has had, the ability to fix this pack – except for Sam, Sam is powerless, sorry Sam. We have  _all_  been able to step up and say, ‘yo, this is stupid, let’s all hug it out like real wolf-men,’ and nobody’s done anything because we’re all scared of a repeat performance of the last trade deadline.  Well, as an old friend pointed out to us recently, living in fear of what might happen is just going to make you miserable, because  _anything_  could happen, at any time.  The Toronto Maple Leafs could win the Stanley Cup  _right now_  – well, not right now, it’s October, but like  _this season_ , but we aren’t going to let that nightmare keep us from trying to stop them.  Just because something could have a terrible outcome doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try when there’s a good cause behind it.

“And like, we’ve gotta think past ourselves, y’know?  Because what about kids like Sammy, who came back expecting a pack and found a bunch of grumpy wolves who refused to talk to each other? What if there’d been new kids coming up this year that were wolves?  You can’t just tell them ‘sorry, suck it up and do it yourselves because we aren’t helping you’ – like, our own man-pain isn’t justification for like, ruining their puppyhoods or whatever.  We owe it to them, at the least, to keep things going, but I think we owe it to ourselves too, because  _we-_ ” He paused again to point at them. “ _We,_ are full-on L’Oréal-style worth it.”

Everybody stared at him in what Tyler was going to hope was awe.  Mike, currently playing the role of a stanchion at his side and doing a beautiful job of it, was also staring.

Zemgus shifted around on the couch, visibly uncomfortable, and not just because Sam looked ready to hug the nearest thing he saw (i.e., Zemgus).

“Why do you keep saying ‘we’?  I mean, not that you aren’t pack or something, just that…it’s not your fault.”

Tyler shrugged.  “I could have done more.  I  _should_  have done more.  In fact, I should have told you all to get your heads out of your mopey asses back in March, but I didn’t.  I followed your guys’ lead, which was obviously a stupid idea given that we’re having this conversation right now, and  _that_  is why it’s my fault.”

“But you’re right,” Mike said, looking like he’d just woken up. “Even if Tyler could have tried to do something, it doesn’t change that he wasn’t part of choosing to…stop trying.  We didn’t let him make that choice.  And honestly…” He shifted from one foot to the other, looking away as if steeling himself before turning back to the pack.

“Honestly, I’m to blame for a lot of this.  I was supposed to stand up and, if not take over, then at least hold things together for you guys, and I didn’t.  I gave up, and I pushed you all away, and I set an example that this is how you respond when things get bad – you huddle down and ignore each other and pretend it doesn’t hurt.  I think we’ve all learned that right now, everything hurts, and that was probably the worst possible decision we could have made. I take responsibility for that.”

“Dude.” Marcus was looking at Mike like he was ten different kinds of dumb; usually Tyler was the one meting out that particular look. “You didn’t  _make_  us do anything.  We all know you never wanted to be alpha – you’re like the most beta beta to ever beta.  And, sorry, bro, but you don’t have that big of an influence on us.”  With a glance at a squirming Mark and Rasmus, he amended, “Not  _all_  of us, at least.  We weren’t following your lead; I think we all thought that throwing in the towel and running away was a good idea on our own, and then we realized we’d made a mistake.  Like, if I’d thought you were being an idiot, I’d have just told you to your face.”

Zemgus nodded along.

Mike crossed his arms, face unreadable.

“Then why were you all afraid of me?”

Now it was Marcus and Zemgus’s turns to look uncomfortable.

“I mean…we weren’t…”

“Bullshit.  Maybe not at first you weren’t, but the last few months you guys have been tiptoeing around me like I’m the fucking boogeyman or something.  I’m not Shea Weber – I’m not going to eat you just because something you had nothing to do with upset me, and honestly, it kind of stings that you think I would.  I might not be alpha-material, but I’d hope you’d know that I’m not…like  _that_.”

_Everyone_  was uncomfortable now, including Sam.

Mark took the bullet for them.

“We weren’t… _afraid_ , per se.  More like…after…that thing, in the spring, where, uh…” His voice got progressively quieter until he mumbled, low enough that Tyler nearly missed it but undoubtedly loud enough for wolves, “That thing where Jhonas apparently came back and tried to talk to you and you got really pissed off – like, after that.  We just didn’t want to bother you.  We didn’t want to make things worse.”

He seemed to shrink in on himself, as if without his words he had deflated, but Rasmus took up the mantle for him, looking up at them with those ridiculously blue eyes.

“We wanted to be a good pack, even if we weren’t a pack, and if leaving you would make you happy…” He shrugged.

In a stupid werewolf-logic way, it made sense.  Tyler still thought it was dumb, though.

But Mike seemed to get it.

“I thought that’s what I wanted,” he conceded.  “Obviously, I was wrong. We were all wrong, if we’re all so universally unhappy right now. But…thank you, for trying.”

The others nodded, and it felt like some of the tension finally seeped out of the air.

“So we agree that we’ve made a big mistake,” Mike continued.  “On how to fix it…a… _friend_  made a suggestion to us.  It’s pretty radical, and it might be dangerous.  But right now, it might be the only thing that would work.”

Mike took a deep breath; the pack didn’t appear to be breathing at all, watching him with rapt attention.

“I,” he said slowly, “Would be your alpha.  But we all know that that on its own wouldn’t be a good idea – I’m the oldest here, and I’ve spent the longest time in the pack, but I don’t have that same drive.  I don’t want to lead; I want to help.

“So our  _friend_  suggested a solution that might work for us: a co-alpha.”

There was an immediate disturbance among the pack, grumbles of confused protest and looks of concern.

“Who was it?” Marcus demanded, “Was it Ryan?  He can’t be a co-alpha from fucking  _Vancouver-_ ”

“Is one of  _us_  supposed to be the co-alpha?” Zemgus asked, looking almost nervous as the prime candidate for that, along with maybe Marcus.  “Because I don’t think-”

“Does that even  _work_?” Sam sounded scared.

Tyler, luckily, had seen fit to make a stop at the store before the game, to match his newfound position.

It turned out dog whistles worked just as well on werewolves.

As everyone gave him an injured look of offense, Tyler smiled happily at the whistle in his hand like it held the world’s secrets.

“You and I, my friend,” he told it, “We are going places.”

He then pocketed the whistle and turned back to the pack.

“Are you ready to play nice now?  Because we wait our turns to speak here.”

They glared at him, still looking confused.  Mike took back the reins.

“To answer your questions: yes, co-alphas can work – Ryan and Jason were successful co-alphas here for years, and the Sedins have been doing well enough with it in Vancouver, too. Yes, the ‘friend,’ was Ryan, who was very concerned about all of our wellbeing given that we’re all miserable bastards right now, so we should probably be writing him a thank you card for making us have this conversation.  And no, the co-alpha won’t be one of you.”

He took an audibly deep breath.

“The co-alpha is going to be Tyler.”

This time, there was no cacophony of protesting voices.  Instead there was just a prolonged, blank silence, followed by Marcus snorting, “You’re right, that  _is_  stupid and dangerous.”

“I didn’t say it was stupid-”

“No, but it was implied, because that idea  _is_  stupid.  He’s a human; you know humans can’t be-”

“Hey!”

Marcus’s mouth closed with a snap and he turned to look at Tyler with wide eyes.

Tyler smiled internally, pleased.

“See?  You listen to me.  And you all listened to me when I told you to come here.  I may be human, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still be an effective member of this pack.   _And_ , it does not mean you get to talk about me like I’m not standing in the same room as you.  I’ve had enough of that in the past twenty-four hours, thank you very much.”

Marcus at least had the good grace to look chagrined.

“I’m sorry, Enzo.  You know I didn’t mean-”

“You’re just saying what everyone else is thinking.  Webby thought the same thing, too.  He still kind of thinks it, honestly.

“But think about this: I’m not afraid to lead, and I’ve been around longer than all of you guys except Webby.  I know this pack.  And I really,  _really_ fucking care about you guys, okay?  I might be human, but this is my pack, too, and I get to make my own decisions for once. I know the risks. I know that you guys are all afraid something terrible might happen, but it’s like I said about running a pack: we can’t let the possibility that something  _might_  happen make us miss out on something good.  And I think that me and Webby leading this pack together could be really, really good, and I think if you’d get your xenophobic heads out of your furry little asses, you’d think so too.”

He paused, taking a moment to look them all over.

“Well?  Have you done it yet?”

After a few seconds they all nodded awkwardly.

“Head thoroughly removed from ass, sir,” Zemgus reported in a droll voice.

“Good boys,” Tyler said with a nod.  “So we’re all in agreement now?  I’m not asking you not to worry; I’m just asking that you don’t let that worry override your ability to do anything.  If you don’t trust me as your alpha because I’m a total space cadet, fine, I can take that. But don’t distrust me just because I’m human.”

The looks he received were terribly offended, and then the protests came.

“You aren’t-”

“We don’t think you’re-”

“Who called you that, I swear to God-”

“Hey, hey, don’t make me get out the whistle again!”

That, at least, shut them up right away.

That whistle was turning out to be the best five dollars Tyler had ever spent.

“First of all, nobody said that to me, or at least not recently and not where I could hear them.  But I know that’s what I’m like, and I know the comments that people have made before. I know I’m…eccentric on a good day, and I know that’s not for everyone.  I’m just giving you guys that out, if you want it.”

“We don’t want it,” Marcus grumbled, sounding actually really upset. “And I’m pissed off that you’d even  _suggest_  it.  You’re a part of this pack, man, you said it yourself.  You’ve been here longer than us.  You’re like…”

“The pack mascot?”

“The fucking pack security blanket, more like.  You don’t let pack bullshit get to you, you’ve been there for all of us from the start and like, shit, man, I don’t know, you make people feel welcome. You didn’t even know we were werewolves and you just treated us all like your pack anyway, just because that’s how you are.”

“You’re the wolfiest human I’ve ever met,” Mark said with a shy smile.

The rest of them were nodding along in agreement, and for a rare moment, Tyler found himself at a loss for words.

“Even…even more than Otter?”

For this, he turned to Mike.

With a slight smile, Mike conceded, “Yeah, even more than Otter.  He’s good at the actual-wolf part, the instincts, the roughhousing, the protectiveness, but you – you’ve got the pack part down, the leadership, the mother-henning, refusing to take our shit.  The puppy piles.  He might look the part, but you’ve got the credentials.”

“I’m an alpha with a wayward pack of werewolves,” Tyler said.

That put smiles back on everyone’s faces.

“Yeah man,” Mike said, “I’d say so.”

He then looked at the pack.

“So?  What do you boys say?  Are we good with me and Tyler as the alphas?  Are we all in agreement on trying the whole pack thing again?”

There wasn’t even a pause before Mike and Tyler found themselves crushed together under a pile of ecstatic werewolves.  Sam had even gone full-shift in his excitement, and the others didn’t look far behind.

“Oh, whatever.” Tyler heaved a loud mock-sigh and patted the top of whichever still-human head was currently snuffling at his neck.  “Go, be wolfy, do your thing.  But we’re moving somewhere better in like twenty minutes, because I may be young and spry, but this floor won’t keep me that way for long.”

That was all the invitation any of them needed, because then even Mike was gone and Tyler was left to be buried alive among an exceptionally happy puppy pile of squirming, yipping, cuddly werewolves.

For his first serious pack-meeting as a new co-alpha, the Kid was doing pretty alright.

~~~

Nathan Gerbe wasn’t used to his phone buzzing with a text at three in the morning after a game unless something serious had happened.  Given that they had just come off of a win and he knew some of the younger guys were planning to go out to celebrate, he weighed his options and figured it was best to check the message just to make sure that nobody had done something stupid that they needed bailing out of.

What he found instead when he unlocked his phone on the third try was a photo of Tyler, barely visible except an arm and a face amidst a sea of wolf fur.

_U jelly?_  it read.

“Fucking Enzo,” Nathan grumbled, tossing his phone back onto the nightstand and rolling over.

He was maybe a little bit jealous; Tyler was, admittedly, the best cuddle-partner Nathan had ever had.

But he wasn’t about to admit that, not when there was a war on.

He’d have to assemble the Swedes tomorrow to make his rebuttal.  After all, he couldn’t let Tyler get away with outclassing him at anything – not even puppy piles.

Enzo wouldn’t know what hit him.


	31. Sabres: #christmaswolves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by the full moon on Christmas of 2015.
> 
> 12/25/15

“I’m just saying, man.  The full moon’s on Christmas this year. I’m pretty sure if that means anything, it’s Christmas werewolves.”

Jack sounded absolutely confident in his beliefs, but Matt was scoffing and rolling his eyes.

“Yeah, okay. And what would make a Christmas werewolf any different than a regular werewolf?”

“I don’t know.” Jack made a face. “It’d be like, a regular werewolf, but on Christmas.  With like, tinsel in its fur and shit.”

“Red and green fur?” Ryan asked with a sly smile from the next stall.

“Of  _course_. See, man, Snook’s got it.”

“ _There’s no such thing as Christmas werewolves_.”

Sam’s voice cut across the regular din of the post-practice dressing room, clear and firm enough to gather everybody’s attention. When silence fell and all eyes turned to him, Sam shifted uncomfortably and visibly swallowed, still wearing half of his pads.

“I mean,” he mumbled in a weaker voice, eyes flitting to the logo in the center of the room, “If there were like, real werewolves. They wouldn’t change all special just because it’s Christmas.  That’s all….Werewolves aren’t real.”

He sat down in his stall and began tugging at his socks with fervent concentration, eyes focused solely on his task.  Slowly, everybody went back to their previous conversations and continued undressing.

Including Jack.

“Now that sounds like exactly something that a Christmas werewolf would say.”

Sam looked up sharply, mouth poised to answer, when Enzo interjected, “Nah, man, a real Christmas werewolf would only be able to speak in like, Christmas lyrics and shit.  But with like, lyrics about squirrels and rabbits. That ‘chipmunks roasting on an open fire’ song – definitely written by a Christmas werewolf.”

“I’m pretty sure my uncle would have written a song like that,” Caber mused, and then that set off a debate over which forest animals were just  _too weird, ew_  to eat, and in what manner eating them was acceptable (“if you have to cover it in barbecue sauce so you can’t taste it, you shouldn’t be trying to eat it”).

Tyler sent a wink in Sam’s direction.  Sam, thankfully, did not jump into the new argument.

“Christmas is only a week away,” Tyler told him as they walked side-by-side through the parking lot.  “I could totally give your fur a red and green dye-job with Kool Aid mix.”

“ _Stoooop_ ,” Sam whined quietly, every bit the pup he tried to pretend he wasn’t.  But he was smiling even as he said it, hip purposely bumping into Tyler’s.

“We’re gonna be the  _best_  Christmas werewolves.” Marcus came up behind them and threw an arm over either of their shoulders.  “I bet Z’s already going to buy tinsel right now.  And I  _know_  Mark just ran off to empty PetSmart of its Christmas dog collars.”

“There’s no such thing as Christmas werewolves!” Sam pouted. They’d reached Tyler’s car, and Sam was now staring at him beseechingly, trying to use his puppy-eyes to beg his co-alpha to intervene for him.

Sadly for him, Tyler  _invented_  puppy-eyes and also was totally not on his side.

“Dude, we know that there are no special wolfy changes or whatever because it’s Christmas, but come  _on_ , you’re a werewolf on Christmas! You gotta be able to have fun with it when something like that comes along.”

Marcus squeezed his shoulder.  “Yeah!  Come on, how often does that happen?  Columbus is going all-out with their werewolf Christmas, Sammy, and Nick’s been sending me uncaptioned photos of it to gloat all month.  I just wake up to photos of like, holiday dog beds and pet sweaters and  _cakes for dogs_.  We have to do  _something_ , even if it’s just wearing jingle bells and eating holiday dog treats.”

“I already got you guys the candy cane-shaped rawhides, but that’s a secret, so you have to act surprised when you open them,” Tyler said.

“See?  Enzo’s into it!  Besides, you love rawhides, don’t front.”

Sam blushed and looked away, because it was kind of embarrassing, but his rawhide habit was infamous.

“Rasmus is obsessed with chewing ropes,” he mumbled, a sad attempt to draw attention away from himself.

Tyler reached in front of Marcus to pat Sam’s shoulder consolingly.

“And that’s why I got him the rope wreath with rope dog bone ornaments on it.  I am so prepared for Christmas werewolves, Sammy, just let me have this.”

Sam didn’t look too happy about it, but he sighed and nodded.  And when Tyler positively beamed and reached up to ruffle his hair as Marcus squeezed him into a hug, he was too busy giggling helplessly to remember why he was pouting in the first place.

And a week later when the pack opened their gifts, he ended up spending too much time wrestling with Zemgus and Webby over a stuffed squeaky Santa while Mark happily jumped around them in a collar covered in jingle bells to remember why he’d ever thought that Christmas werewolves could be anything but an excellent idea.

In the end Tyler didn’t dye his fur using Kool Aid mix. They used Jello instead, and it was really difficult to explain in the locker room the next morning.

~~~

( _“Son of a bitch!”_  Marcus cursed on Saturday morning as everybody was blearily stumbling around Mike’s kitchen, huddled over coffee and trying desperately to get ready for a game-day.

“What’s wrong?” Webby leaned over the island counter where he was plating up everybody’s eggs.

Marcus turned his phone so everybody could see it.

On the screen was a selfie of a smiling Scott Hartnell dressed as Santa Claus surrounded by a sea of green and red-clad wolves wearing assorted hats and reindeer antlers.  And this one, for once, appeared to have a caption:

 _#merrywerewolfchristmas_   _#youjelly?_

Marcus groaned loudly as his head thunked against the countertop.

“Can I win  _nothing?_ ”)


	32. Sabres: #newyearswolves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by bigneonglitter
> 
> 12/31/15

Apparently, Jack still hadn’t gotten over the idea of seasonal werewolves.

“Okay, so if there are Christmas werewolves, there have to be New Year’s werewolves too, right?” he asked after morning skate on New Year’s Eve.

“ _There’s no such thing as-_ ”

“Let me have this, Samson.  Just this one thing.   _So_ , if there were New Year’s werewolves.”

“Tinsel,” Ginner called over.  “Just like at Christmas.”

Ryan shook his head. “I think it’d be more like confetti. You know, just roll all around in it.”

“But it’s not a full moon,” Jack said, “So do you think they’d still be wolves or would they just like be naked humans in confetti?”

Bogo walked by on his way out of the room, shaking his head in disappointment.  “You’re all wrong,” he said. “Three words: Super. Drunk. Werewolves.”

Everybody nodded.  That seemed the most likely.

And indeed, little did they know, but they were 100% abso-freaking-lutely correct.

Wolves didn’t have to change on New Year’s without a full moon, so they were just as free as the rest of the team to get absolutely, ridiculously, ludicrously and perhaps just a little inhumanly plastered.

Or at least the Sabres did.

Marcus felt his phone buzz sometime shortly after the New Year began, and it took him more than a few tries to key in the correct code after they had spent the last few hours in this loud and very enthusiastic and celebratory bar.  When he saw the text he’d received, he couldn’t do anything more than groan loudly and slump miserably across the team’s table.

It was a text from his brother’s phone, but it once again featured a selfie of a supremely smug Scott Hartnell surrounded by a full pack of wolves decked out in party hats and sparkly 2016 glasses – and yes, there was confetti, and even tinsel.

_#happywerewolfnewyear #quittersneverwin_

“Valentine’s Day,” he hissed, pointing a finger at a somewhat stunned looking Rasmus.  “Valentine’s Day is going to be  _ours_.”


	33. Sabres/Jets: Drew POV, Seeing the Pack Again, Post-Trade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the Sabres-Jets game on 1/10/16, where Sam Reinhart scored his first hat trick.
> 
> 1/14/16

There was something bittersweet about it, when you wanted to be proud of your pack, but they weren’t your pack anymore.  It was the same with teams, actually, and that one went down just as poorly.

Drew knew that it was going to be hard, after the trade, but knowing that and experiencing it were two different things. He loved his new team, was happy there, even, but there was still something that leapt excitedly in his chest when he saw the blue and gold, when he saw his friends (because they weren’t his team anymore) so happy after so much pain.  Something that felt wilted and miserable when he remembered how this team that had been his for so many years, this team that he’d won and fought and lost with, was going to do so well in the coming seasons, and he wasn’t going to be part of it.

He felt like a traitor when he played the Sabres, but the worst part was that he could never tell which side it felt like he was betraying.

Tyler understood, at least.  He was in the same boat, after all; more than Drew had ever been, Tyler had been lauded as one of the saviors of Buffalo hockey. He was supposed to be part of their rebuild, was originally supposed to have saved them from needing a rebuild as their elite defenseman.  And instead he, like Drew and Ryan and Thomas and Jason and everybody else, had been a victim of the desperate need for change.

Having Tyler there made it easier – a lot easier, particularly, than it would have been if Drew had arrived in Winnipeg to no pack at all.  Instead, at the very least he was lucky enough to take a pack member with him, somebody familiar whom he knew he could rely on.

He watched Tyler skate around and pick up the handful of hats that littered the ice after Sam’s first career hat trick was confirmed, and he knew then that Tyler was having just as rough of a time of this as he was.

Going to visit a pack of excited wolves after the game, their former pack that had just beaten them and was high on the win and Sam’s hat trick and their goalie’s performance and the end of their losing streak, was even harder.

Drew was torn between excitement at getting to see the pack and relief that they had to leave directly for the airport, and he wasn’t sure which part made him feel guiltier.  Probably the part that still felt like he was failing as an alpha, even though he wasn’t anybody’s alpha anymore.

Technically, he was supposed to be Tyler’s alpha, but on their own as they were, there wasn’t anything to really be an alpha about, anyway.  It suited Drew better, he thought, not to have to look after anybody.  Not to have to chance screwing them up.

But when Sam came out of the visitor’s room and smiled that big, sunshine smile, still so full of excitement over his first NHL hat trick, and threw his arms around Drew like he just couldn’t contain himself and said, “You’re here!”

Well.  It was hard not to miss that part.

It was hard not to miss your first cub.

“Yeah, I’m here,” he said quietly, trying to find some balance between refusing to respond to the hug at all and clinging as tightly as possible.  He wasn’t used to being on this side of it, being the former alpha who had to learn how to interact with his old pack when they no longer belonged to him.  From the way Sam was snuffling eagerly at his neck, much too public for anybody’s good, he wasn’t even attempting to adjust his behavior.

Part of Drew, buried deep down where he refused to acknowledge it, was smug that his pack would miss him just as much as he missed them.  But he knew logically that it wasn’t good for them to cling to an alpha who wasn’t there with them anymore,  _couldn’t_  be with them anymore.  That had, after all, been Drew’s forte.  That had been his problem all along.

He knew about their new alpha situation.  Enzo had told him shortly after it happened, because Enzo had never been one to let any ideals of cultural decorum get in his way. Drew figured it was working, because none of the pack had looked miserable, and when Marcus and Zemgus exited the visitor’s room and headed straight for Drew and Sam, they looked like they were doing okay, too.  Whatever system Enzo and Webby had figured out, it seemed to be working well.

Tyler came over and distracted some of the cubs, congratulating Sam on his hat trick.  “I gave the trainers your hats,” he said, looking uncharacteristically shy.  His old packmates bowled over any awkwardness, acting like nothing had changed.

Tyler had a pinched look on his face, like he couldn’t decide how much he should let himself enjoy it.  He and Drew both knew, after all, that the clock had to strike midnight some time.  They couldn’t get too reattached.

When Mike exited the dressing room, Rasmus at his side and talking quietly with him, Drew didn’t miss how his eyes scanned the assembled crowd, searching for the pack and doing a headcount.

He would be a good alpha, Drew thought.  Even if he was nobody’s first choice including Mike’s own, with Tyler’s help, he was sure the two of them would combine to be a better alpha than he ever was.

“You’re doing a good job,” he said, when Mike made his way over to him. Rasmus pressed up against Drew’s side and then backed off, as if suddenly unsure of his welcome.

With a small smile, Drew held out an arm; Rasmus didn’t hesitate in attaching himself to Drew’s side, only a little bit more subtle than Sam had been as he sniffed his hair.

“Thanks,” Mike said, rubbing at the back of his neck. He obviously still wasn’t totally comfortable with his new role, but the pack didn’t seem to mind.  After having Drew as an alpha, they were probably immune to an alpha’s awkwardness.

“Enzo was mad he had to miss this trip,” Mike said, holding the words out as if in offering.  “Mark too.  They were excited to see you.”

Drew glanced at Tyler a few feet away, caught up in the throng of their old pack.

“Yeah, it’s a shame.  We were excited to see him too.  How’s he been, with…?” He didn’t really know how to put it to words, the whatever-it-was that had been going on between Enzo and Cody. “He calls me a lot, but he’s never mentioned it, and I didn’t want to be the one to bring it up.”

Rasmus was making a face now, obviously not a fan of the topic, and Drew nudged him towards the rest of the pack. “Go say hi to Tyler, he’s missed you,” he said quietly.  That got him a small smile and, with one last hand along Drew’s back, a departure.

When he turned back to Mike, his expression wasn’t very different. “He doesn’t talk about it,” he said, grimacing and glancing away.  “You can tell he thinks about it sometimes, because he gets kind of morbid and makes weird comments – like, weird for him, I mean – but he won’t bring it up.  I tried letting him know once that he could talk to me about whatever happened, after we played Nashville, but whatever went on between them at the end of the season or during those games, he’s not talking about it now.”

“And is he – okay?”

Mike shrugged.  “Yeah.  Having the team and the pack to focus on is helping him, I think.  I mean, I guess it’s just something we have to let him deal with on his own.  It sucks, because usually we’re all way too involved in each other’s business, but…” He shrugged again. “He’s growing up, I guess.  He’s a little different, now.  More responsible, maybe.  He’s good for the pack – great, actually.  Everybody listens to him and you know they love him.  He’s just…private about some things, I guess.”

“Tyler Ennis and private are not two words I’d usually put together,” Drew muttered, a wry smile crossing his face.  Mike grinned and shook his head.

“He’s informed me recently, completely out of the blue, that he has hidden depths.  So I guess we all just have to adjust our ideas.”

There was a shout from one of the coaches about everyone getting their shit together; the Sabres had a flight to catch.

Drew shot Mike another grim smile.  “Looks like that’s your ride.”

The look on Mike’s face was hard to discern. “Yeah…I, uh.  Look.  You know that, even if you’re on another team, you guys are still welcome-”

“Yeah,” Drew interrupted.  He glanced at Tyler again, who was thankfully not paying attention. “We know.  It’s just…even if the offer’s available, we can’t always take advantage of it.  We’ve got to get used to…not being around, still. You know?”

It pained him to admit it out loud, but it was the healthiest choice.  Wolves were traded around all the time; you could keep your friends, but clinging to your old pack would only hurt you in the end.

He still hated to say it, wanted to take the words back as soon as he said them. If Mike’s wince meant anything, it hurt to hear them too.

“I thought so,” he said quietly.  “I just wanted you to know that, when you guys come to town, or if you just want to call or Skype…the offer’s available.”

“I know.” Drew attempted for a more cheerful smile, but he knew it was probably still grim.  He clapped Mike on the shoulder, unable to keep his hand from sliding around to squeeze the back of his neck.

From the look on Mike’s face, he was far from minding.

“Look after the kids for me, yeah?  Now that Sammy’s got that hat trick you know it’s going to go to his head.” He raised his voice, just to hear the token protests from Sam which were immediately drowned out by the rest of the pack ganging up on him.

Mike’s own smile was sad.  “Yeah.  I will. Listen, take care of yourself, okay? And Tyler, too.”

Drew nodded.  “Always, man.  We’ll be alright.”

And they would, he knew.  It was just a long, hard adjustment period. They’d both spent their entire careers in Buffalo, in the same pack.  It was hard to go from one of the largest packs in the league to being a pack on your own thousands of miles away from what you’d been calling home.  It wasn’t a bad change; the team was struggling, but it wasn’t the scraping-the-bottom struggle that Drew had lived with for so many years, and maybe learning to be a pack of two could be good for him.  He probably needed some independence.

He was learning to appreciate a good challenge.

But he knew, as he watched the pack get rounded up and absorbed into the rest of the team, joking around with and shoving at guys who Drew had never met before, that this was not the challenge that he would have chosen for himself.


	34. Sabres: #valentineswolves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by scribetuesday
> 
> 2/14/16

Wolves, like dogs, were not supposed to eat chocolate. Marcus had learned that the hard way when his sisters had fed him candy bars on Halloween when he was four and spent all of his free time as a wolf.  If he’d eaten it as a human he would have been fine. As a wolf, not so much.

(It had been Nick’s seventh birthday, too, and Marcus had missed cake because he was too busy throwing up in the backyard, his mom sitting next to him and stroking his back. He totally didn’t hold a grudge about it anymore, except he brought it up at least once a year, typically around Nick’s birthday. He didn’t forget that Nick hadn’t done anything to intervene.)

So Marcus knew that candy and chocolate were out. Considering they made up like fifty percent of what people qualified as “Valentine’s Day,” he was going to have to get more creative.

That meant going after the other side of Valentine’s Day – stuffed animals and flowers.

A  _lot_  of stuffed animals and flowers.

“I know this looks unreasonable,” he said to Mark as the two of them struggled to carry the stacks of boxes into Marcus’s house, “But it’s not. This is totally necessary, because I can’t let Nick win again.  I need to do this one thing all-out, so that for once in my life I can say that I have the better pack.”

Mark dropped his boxes on the living room floor and stared at Marcus, eyes wide and bewildered and far too puppyish for their age.

“But I thought we already were the better pack.”

Marcus reached over and mussed up his hair, drawing Mark under his arm. “We are, bro, we definitely are.  We just have to stick it to my brother so he’ll have to recognize it too.”

It wasn’t weird.  Marcus just needed to win this, so he could lord it over Nick forever. That was all.

It wasn’t weird if he said it wasn’t.

“Bro, this is totally weird,” Zemgus said later that night after their win against the Avalanche.  “Like, I’m-kind-of-concerned-for-you weird.”

“What are you talking about?” Tyler scoffed.  He waded to the couch and sat down on a pile of teddy bears. “This is great!”

From beneath a pile of thornless roses and stuffed animals holding hearts, Sam, already a wolf, yipped in agreement.

It wasn’t  _that_  weird to buy enough flowers and stuffed animals to cover his entire living room floor at least a foot deep.  If you bought large enough stuffed animals they took up like half the space anyway.  It wasn’t that weird.

“No, this is weird,” Mike said with a decisive nod. He was looking far too warily at the covered floor, particularly the little ripple that was appearing as Sam tunneled underneath the pile and popped up next to the couch, tongue lolling out of his mouth and a few carnations stuck to his fur.  Tyler beamed proudly and scratched behind his ears.

“It’s…different?” Rasmus offered. “But won’t we crush the flowers?”

Mark pointed at him. “That’s what I said!”

Marcus rolled his eyes. “You guys are all thinking too much into this. C’mon, it’s Valentine’s Day, it’s fun!”

“But there isn’t even any chocolate,” Zemgus whined.

“No!” Marcus and Rasmus shouted at the same time. They shared a haunted look. Apparently they had both been there before.

“You don’t need chocolate, Z,” Tyler said, lazily wrestling with Sam without getting off the couch. “You just need to have fun! Come on, stuffed animals are fun, flowers are fun.”

“Exactly!”

Zemgus shook his head and sighed.  “I mean, it’s the full moon, I’ll still do it. It’s just weird is all.”

“Really weird,” Mike agreed firmly.

Well, whatever.  Marcus would show them all, this was going to be the most fun Valentine’s Day full moon ever.

And better yet, he’d show Nick, too.

At least he had his priorities in order.

~~~

In the end, everyone had to admit that it actually was fun. Marcus learned an important lesson about how crushed flower petals tended to smear their color all over everything, but there was something particularly appealing about Sam’s game of tunnel-and-pounce (not that it wasn’t completely obvious to tell where everyone was coming from, but they were in it more for the tunneling than the surprise), and besides, the stuffed animals went over really well as long as Tyler was there to make sure they didn’t ruin anything too badly.

(“You’ll regret it later,” he said, holding a stuffed rabbit with a tear in its seams close to his chest. “You think the ripping and the fluff is fun now but you’ll look at that deflated bunny later and feel shame for hurting it.”

He was probably right.  They wouldn’t admit it but Marcus knew there’d be some serious guilt.)

Best of all, they got a great picture to send to Nick: Tyler with flower petals caught in his hair, sitting on the floor surrounded by flowers and stuffed animals and wolves, some of whom were only visible from the neck up as they insisted on remaining buried.  Mark was sitting on his haunches in the photo, one foot on Tyler’s shoulder as he tried to lick his cheek, and Rasmus was sprawled sideways over his lap, a stuffed monkey in his mouth and a far too satisfied look on his face. Sam, as per usual, had been nothing but a tail sticking up from a suspiciously wolf-shaped lump under the pile.

_#valentineswolvesarebestwolves_ , had been the caption.

Nick was going to be so jealous.  There was no way he could have topped this.

~~~

And he didn’t, it turned out in the morning.  Nick didn’t have anything to top that.

But it wasn’t for the reasons that Marcus had been hoping.

_lol valentines wolves arent a thing_

Marcus didn’t actually shriek with rage, but if he started composing a text to his sisters that was full of far too many exclamation points, that was nobody’s business but his own.


	35. Sabres/Blue Jackets: #easterwolves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by scribetuesday, who provided the idea for the fic.
> 
> (Last fic posted in this AU for a year and a half, until Truly.)
> 
> 3/27/16

When the team had a day off at home for Easter, Tyler figured that Marcus would be planning something good.  Marcus took the whole “werewolf holiday” thing very seriously, and he didn’t like his brother showing him up every time – or completely discounting all of his efforts.

So when Marcus didn’t mention anything in the days leading up to Easter, Tyler (and everyone else) had just assumed that it would be a surprise.

And when Easter morning arrived and Marcus didn’t contact any of them, Tyler thought that maybe Marcus just had some sort of big Easter extravaganza planned for that night.

And when the evening came and Marcus still hadn’t said anything, it occurred to Tyler that maybe Marcus actually  _wasn’t_  planning to do anything for Easter. Which, that was okay.  It wasn’t like he  _had_  to do anything, it wasn’t his duty or something and holiday wolves wasn’t some sort of tradition they were breaching by not doing anything.  It was totally up to Marcus if he wanted to do anything or nothing at all.

Well, except that Tyler had been so  _ready_  for Easter wolves.  He’d bought rabbit ears. There were egg dyes.  He may or may not have had bags overflowing with Easter grass shoved in his closet.  It was possible that Easter wolves was going to be his distraction from thinking about how many games he’d missed this season out on injury.

Marcus didn’t have to do anything for the holiday, but he probably should have told Tyler that first, because Tyler had been prepared for the biggest, wolfiest Easter ever, and now his bro had left him hanging.

He wasn’t outraged, but he certainly was more than a little disappointed.

Tyler had planned to broach the topic at morning skate the next day (he wasn’t skating, but he had to come in to do some work with the trainers anyway, and he liked being around the team), but Sam beat him to it, looking for all the world like the kicked puppy he probably was as he whispered rather unsubtly to Marcus.

“So did you guys, like, uh, do something yesterday, and I just didn’t get the invite?  Or like…”

He looked so upset at the prospect of being left out that Marcus must have taken pity on him, because he shook his head, mumbling, “No, we didn’t do anything.  Easter wolves aren’t, like, a thing.”

Zemgus, who had been not so subtly eavesdropping nearby, frowned suddenly.  “Who says?” He looked almost offended.

Marcus shrugged and busied himself with changing into his gear.

“It’s all just made up, man.  It’s dumb kid stuff.  Nobody else does it.”

Well now Zemgus really did look offended, and Sam looked hurt.  They all knew how much Sam enjoyed holiday wolves.

“Nick does it,” Zemgus said.  “His whole team does it!  What about that, I thought you wanted to beat him.”

Marcus wouldn’t meet their eyes, which was an obvious tell that he cared a lot more than he was letting on.  “Yeah, but like, it’s not like it’s a competition or whatever. It’s just a stupid thing we do sometimes, it doesn’t matter.”

Zemgus looked over at Tyler, hovering a few feet away but not directly involved in the conversation, and the look they shared expressed just how much none of them believed that.

But Marcus changed the subject after that and refused to let them bring up Easter wolves again, shrugging off Rasmus and Mark’s later questions about what had or had not happened on Sunday.  Despite all of his insistences to the opposite, his downcast eyes and subdued behavior betrayed just how much he probably actually cared about this.

It might be dumb, and it might be childish, but it was  _their_  thing.  Full moon or not, holiday wolves were fun, even if they all chirped each other about it from time to time.  Tyler knew that Marcus took the competition with his brother seriously, even if Marcus refused to call it a competition.  Always losing to Nick, in some way or another, had to be grating on him.

His pack member was upset, and now that Webby was gone, Tyler was alone as the de facto alpha for his pack.  He may have been a human, and he may have been out on IR, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t do something to fix this.

It looked like he’d have to take this into his own hands…

~~~

Holiday wolves were pretty difficult to do on the road, because it was hard to find a place for over twenty werewolves, two humans, and way too many Easter decorations.

But they had the day off in Washington, and parks always  _were_  a great place for Easter egg hunts, so Nick and Bob made do.  Even if they had to fill the little plastic eggs with dog treats because Nick had seen what happened when wolves ate chocolate and Marcus  _still_  wouldn’t let him forget it.

Speaking of Marcus, Nick had sent him a text that afternoon, as per usual.  Or rather, Hartsy had sent Marcus a text from Nick’s phone, because Nick was too busy being climbed on by cubs proudly showing off the plastic eggs they’d found to take the picture himself.

_Peter Cottontail better watch out #easterwolvesftw_

He was a little surprised when he checked his phone before bed that evening to find that Marcus hadn’t responded, if only just to gripe at him if not with a photo of his own.  It wasn’t that unusual – he could just be busy, after all, or maybe his phone was dead or he just hadn’t seen it yet.

But something sat poorly in his stomach, a feeling that maybe it was something a little worse.

“You okay?” Bob asked, glancing over as he prepared to shut off the light. Bjorky was already passed out in his wolf form between the two of them, but otherwise they were surprisingly alone – even if most guys had their own rooms, they didn’t often make use of them.  By Nick’s estimate though, Hartsy was probably holding court over at least a few guys in his room – for a human, he was very popular with the pack.

Nick shrugged, setting his alarm for the next day and plugging his phone in.

“I guess.  I don’t know.  Marcus hasn’t replied yet.”

Bob knew him well enough to know as to what Nick was referring.

“Could be sleeping,” he offered quietly.  “Or busy.”

“Yeah,” Nick sighed, “That’s what I was thinking. You’re probably right, I’m probably just worrying about something stupid.”

“Hey.”  Bob reached over the cub between them and passed a hand over the back of Nick’s head, fingers trailing through his hair before resting firmly on the back of his neck. “It’s not stupid.  You’re a good brother.”

He gave Nick a small little smile that Nick couldn’t help returning.  He was about to thank Bob, for being a good alpha, for always knowing the right thing to say, for always being there for him, when his phone buzzed on the table next to him.

Thinking it was finally Marcus he grabbed for it, but the new message was from an unknown number with a Buffalo area code.

_hey i stole ur numbr from ur brothers phone im not sorry. can i call u? we need to talk_

Nick frowned and squinted at it like maybe that could make things make more sense.  Before he could show it to Bob, another message came in.

_lol too late_

With that his phone promptly began to ring, a call from the same unknown Buffalo-area number.  He shrugged at Bob’s questioning expression and accepted the call.

~~~

The Blue Jackets played in Buffalo on Friday, April 8th, almost two weeks after Easter.  It was long enough that Marcus had been able to get around the awkwardness of refusing to acknowledge his brother’s series of text messages on Easter and get back to talking with him normally.  Well, almost normally. Nick was getting squirrely about making plans for when the team came to Buffalo, which was weird for him because the Blue Jackets would have a full day in Buffalo before the game and Nick was usually all about family time together when they were in the same town for once.

“We’ll see,” Nick had said when they spoke on the phone on Tuesday night.  “I might already have plans.”

Marcus had agreed and acted like it didn’t bother him, but he couldn’t say he wasn’t a little hurt that his brother was going to be in town and was apparently making plans that didn’t involve him.  It was now Thursday morning and Nick still hadn’t given him a straight answer.  Marcus figured he was operating on the assumption that Nick must not want to hang out, and so he went home after practice, ate a sandwich, and fell asleep on the couch with the tv showing reruns of the Crocodile Hunter that Zemgus kept recording on his DVR.

When he woke up, the tv had been turned off, the clock on the DVR said that it was past six in the evening, and Enzo was hovering over his head, peering down into his eyes far too intently.

“Are you awake?” Tyler asked solemnly.

Marcus would admit that he jumped, but he wasn’t going to cop to the yelp of surprise.

“What are you doing?”

It wasn’t worth asking how Tyler got in, because in a fit of stupidity they’d all given Tyler a copy of their keys.  But as impulsive as Tyler could be, he was usually very good about giving some sort of forewarning before he showed up on your doorstep – or in your living room.

“Come on, get ready.  We’re going on an adventure.”

“I don’t think I’m really ready for an adventure right now.”  Marcus sat up and stretched, wincing at the kink in his neck.  “Unless it involves beer and at least one thing that Coach would frown on.”

Tyler’s face took on a considering look.  “Well, I don’t know about sinning against Disco, but there might be beer.”

“Is it worth trying to get you to tell me where we’re going?”

Tyler thought about it again.

“Nah.”

Marcus sighed.  “Let me get my shoes on.”

With Tyler, it was really just better not to argue.

The big surprised turned out to be a trip to Delaware Park, which was really rather underwhelming, seeing as it was the main place where the pack went to run when they were at home.  It was one of the few places nearby that was actually large enough for a couple of wolves to run around in without being noticed.

“Look, man, I don’t think I’m really up for a run tonight-”

“Did I say we were going for a run?”  Tyler actually stopped walking to pretend he was trying to remember.  “No?  I didn’t?  Well then, you know what they say about making assumptions.”

 Marcus succeeded in not rolling his eyes, but it was a hard thing.

“Okay, then if we’re not going for a run, what  _are_  we doing?”

“It’s a  _surprise_!”

Tyler waggled his fingers in Marcus’s face like he was sprinkling him with pixie dust, and really, Marcus needed better friends.

He felt a little bit better when Mark appeared on his other side, a sunshine smile in place, a bounce to his step and smelling a little… _off_.

“You’re here!” He reached over to put a hand around Marcus’s arm, and Marcus took the opportunity to lean in closer and smell him. He frowned.

“What have you been-”

“Come on,” Mark interrupted, tugging at his arm, “We’ve been waiting.”

Marcus didn’t bother to ask why anyone was waiting for him, because with these two, he knew he wouldn’t get a straight answer.

He found out soon enough, anyway, when after walking a trail for ten minutes they veered off a path and through the brush, following a path somebody must have made recently, until they reached a small clearing.

A small clearing made even smaller by the number of wolves currently occupying it.

Marcus lost count somewhere around twenty.

“Happy Werewolf Easter!”

He nearly jumped out of his skin when somebody hugged him from the side, the growl dying in his throat when he was overtaken by the familiar scent of family, of home.  When he turned his head, Nick was smiling even more than Mark had been, his eyes bright with it and obviously all too pleased with himself.

 It was then that Marcus realized that this, whatever  _this_  was, had been what Nick was planning. And his own pack had been in on it.

He unconsciously reached up to wrap his own hand around Nick’s arm, holding it there, even as he asked, “What the hell are you talking about?  Easter was weeks ago.”

Nick didn’t at all seem to mind losing custody of his arm, simply moving so that it was around Marcus’s shoulders.  “Yeah, well this was the soonest I got to see you, so.” He shrugged.  “This is your werewolf Easter.”

“You already did one of those,” Marcus said slowly, still feeling like he was ten steps behind everyone here.  He didn’t acknowledge the fact that this showed he’d obviously seen Nick’s texts.

“But you didn’t,” Nick said, and there was something a little more meaningful behind his smile.  “And it’s no fun showing off what a great holiday I’m having if you’re not having a good time too.  So I heard that you guys didn’t do anything for Easter and we decided to bring Easter to you!”

“It was my idea,” Tyler interrupted.  “I stole his number from your phone.”

It was so typically Tyler and so well-intentioned that Marcus didn’t bother letting himself get irritated.  Everyone showed their affection in different ways. Sometimes it involved stealing your friend’s phone.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Marcus said, to the both of them.  “I wasn’t upset or something.”

From the looks they both leveled him, along with Mark, it was abundantly obvious that nobody believed him.

“Well  _I_  was upset on your behalf,” Nick said, “And so we’re having a nice big friendly multi-pack Easter.  We’ve got an Easter egg hunt and everything, and no, there isn’t any chocolate.”

They both knew that had been the next thing that Marcus was going to bring up.

He looked around the field, at the dozens of wolves mingling about. Somewhere under a pile of them he thought he spotted Hartnell and Jones. The only ones yet to shift were their little foursome at the edge of the clearing, and Bobrovsky, who was approaching them now. Sam was tumbling after him, all legs in his wolf form and a bright orange stuffed carrot in his mouth that he was keeping away from the cub chasing him.  When he saw Marcus he rushed over, triumphantly squeaking the carrot at him before squeaking himself when the other cub pounced on him.

Bobrovsky smiled fondly at the exchange.  “Bjorky’s made a friend.”

Marcus looked at him, and then at Nick and Tyler. “You guys didn’t have to do all of this. Seriously.  This is…a lot.  You didn’t have to-”

“We did,” Bobrovsky said, still smiling.  He touched Marcus’s shoulder, briefly, just next to wear Nick’s hand still rested.  “You’re Nick’s brother.  That means you’re family.”

“Besides,” Tyler drawled, “Turns out that werewolf egg hunts in the woods are like, super hardcore, so.” He shrugged, his face as schooled and impassive as it could ever be, but Marcus could tell that he was trying not to smile.  He mussed up Tyler’s hair, just to hear him squawk in protest.

“Well thank you anyway.  To all of you,” he added, glancing around the assembled group.

“Does this mean they can start?” Hartnell called from the pile of wolves about ten yards away.  “The kids are getting rowdy.”

All of the kids, apparently, because it was certainly Rasmus, unmistakably gangly with fluffy white fur, who took a running leap on top of the pile.

Nick squeezed his shoulder, his eyes sparkling mischievously.  “What do you say?  Think you can beat me?”

Marcus smiled back, feeling like his chest could burst with how happy he was, how grateful.  How much he loved his brother, his family, his pack – and, apparently, his extended pack too.

“Dude, we both  _know_  I’m going to beat you.”

They looked at each other for only a moment longer before they both raced off into the throng of wolves, already competing to see who could change the fastest, passing a laughing Bobrovsky and a smug Tyler with Mark, Sam and Bjorkstrand running in their wake.

Maybe this was what he’d been getting wrong all along: competition was fun, but holidays were for togetherness.  Competing together, it turned out, was the most fun of all.

~~~

Living out of a hotel room in an unknown city was a hard adjustment for Mike after years of owning his own house.  Going home after a game didn’t really feel like  _going home_.  Especially when there wasn’t anything he could do to remove the aching, gaping sense of loss in his chest where his pack was supposed to be.  The guys in Washington weren’t bad, but the pack wasn’t  _his_.

And maybe, in his few scant months as a co-alpha,  _his_  had taken on a whole new meaning of ownership.

He was just getting into bed after a game against the Penguins, the sheets smelling too anonymous, too much like hotel bleach, when his phone buzzed and a familiar name flashed across the screen.

Eagerly he opened the message.

It was a photo, dark and taken outdoors with the flash turned on, of Tyler, along with what appeared to be Scott Hartnell and Seth Jones, surrounded by a formidable sea of wolves.  The picture wasn’t of the best quality, but Mike could make out Sam wrestling over a stuffed orange carrot with a smile stitched on it with another cub, plastic eggs scattered on the ground all around them.  And there in the foreground in front of the trio of humans was Marcus, pinned to the ground by a very similar looking wolf who was apparently extremely intent on grooming his ears.

_is this a belated werewolf easter? It IS! #moveovereasterbunny_

Another text followed as Mike was reading.

_miss u buddy <3_

Mike smiled and turned off his phone, pulling the covers up around his shoulders.

He slept better that night than any night since the trade.


	36. Blue Jackets: #hartnelldown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompted: Your werewolf AU is one of my favourites, not least because avoiding the cliche players means a whole different dynamic to other variants. If you're still taking requests for what else to write in the series, I'd love to read more about the Columbus pack and Bob the cuddliest alpha.
> 
> It has been established that circa ~2014, every single player on the Columbus Blue Jackets was a werewolf. Scott Hartnell, who was traded to the team in the 2014 offseason, is a human. This is his story.
> 
> 11/19/17

The ironic thing was, Jarmo Kekäläinen wasn’t even a werewolf.  By all accounts, he, like the vast majority of the populace, continued to function under the assumption that werewolves didn’t exist.

It was just a strange coincidence, then, that he accidentally assembled a professional hockey team made up entirely of werewolves.

In Kekäläinen’s defense, there were already a lot of wolves on the team when he was hired in 2013.  If anyone had bothered to sit down and do the numbers, they would see that the Blue Jackets already had more wolves than any other team in the league by a wide margin.

There was just no way that the very human general manager could know that with every move he made, with every trade and every draft pick and every new signing and every free agent he let walk, more humans left the team and more wolves joined.

It was only by pure, ridiculous chance that as his team looked towards the 2014 offseason, it no longer contained any humans.

Well, until Kekäläinen traded R.J. Umberger back to the Flyers in exchange for Scott Hartnell.

Then it contained one human.

~~~

Sergei hadn’t set out to be an alpha when he came to Columbus.  He hadn’t had much of a plan at all, really, other than a general hope that Columbus would be more functional than whatever had gone on between Richards and Briere and the rest of the Flyers.

When Sergei arrived in Columbus, there was no captain, no alpha, and a metric shit-ton of wolves, all of whom seemed to be warily dancing around the obvious power vacuum in the team.

Sergei may have been a goalie, meaning he couldn’t be a captain (Luongo had tried it for a bit, but if he couldn’t make it work, Bob doubted it would be any easier for him), but there was nothing stopping him from being an alpha.

He took one look around his new team on that first day of training camp, put off so long by the never-ending lockout, and he started putting his ideas into motion.

Maybe after all of his time watching the feud in Philly, he’d expected someone to put up a fight.  Nobody did.  Even the veterans seemed relieved to have somebody step up and take control of things, even if it was the brand new goaltender whose English wasn’t always that great.

(His most ardent supporter, right from the start, had been the new forward traded from Ottawa.

 (“I’ve got your back, Bob,” Nick Foligno had said with a bright-eyed smile.

(Sergei had smiled back, and the rest was history.)

Sergei had grown up in a family and a pack who believed strongly in having close pack ties.  A close pack was a happy, healthy pack.  And the best way to stay close to your pack was to enforce regular pack bonding through whatever means necessary.

It wasn’t even that hard to convince half of the team (the wolfy half) that it was a great idea to pile in a hotel room together in their wolf forms, so obviously they agreed.

The pack flourished, even if the team didn’t.

Sergei honestly didn’t struggle much to control a pack that consisted of the majority of his teammates.  Sure, it was at times a little difficult to figure out the logistics when everyone wanted to pile into the same bed with their alpha after a rough loss, but in general Sergei was a very attentive and involved alpha and had few problems with his pack.  He mediated fights before they really got a chance to begin, often by forcing the offenders to hug it out (they had all scoffed at this at first, but when they figured out that hugging each other meant that then their alpha would hug  _them_ , everyone was more willing to go along with it). He kept up with their personal lives, asking after their families, checking in with guys who were in a slump or were out with injuries.

His pack was his priority, equal with the success of his team, and being an alpha was honestly just as fulfilling as being a professional goaltender in the NHL. Sergei loved being able to care for his pack, supporting them through thick and thin, buoying them up in the hard times and sharing proudly in their successes.

As their alpha, his packmates also took their cues from him as to how they behaved around their human teammates, who numbered in the few during Sergei’s second season with the team.

At times it honestly got a little difficult to remember who was pack and who wasn’t, when their team was already pretty tight-knit. It felt rude not to include human teammates in pack activities, when the few humans who were left might then feel that they were being left out of what would look to be team get-togethers. After all, if you were consistently not invited to some sort of activities that involved more than half of your teammates, you might start to think that people didn’t like having you around.

Sergei hated the idea that his teammates might think that they were unwelcome.  And given that their team was so full of wolves, their dressing room and all of its inhabitants often smelled very strongly of wolves, to the point where at times everyone smelled like a wolf.

It wasn’t so hard, then, to forget who was who and just start treating everyone like they were pack.

The pack, looking to Sergei for guidance, tended to follow suit.

They didn’t bring their human teammates in on the sharing-a-bed thing, because that would be a bridge too far, and they certainly didn’t shift in front of them, but if they got handsier with their human teammates, hugged too much or too long, cuddled up to whoever sat within arm’s reach…well, they were a friendly group of guys who cared about each other.

You didn’t have to be a werewolf to care about your teammates.

That system worked until Sergei’s third year with the team, when all of his teammates were werewolves.  Sergei had paid attention to the team’s new acquisitions over the summer once he’d noticed the trend, and all signs pointed to a team entirely consisting of werewolves.

He couldn’t say he wasn’t excited.  He’d called Nick as soon as he’d figured it out.

“We’re all gonna be wolves this year!” he’d said.

Sergei could hear the smile in Nick’s voice when he replied, “We’re taking over, babe.”

And so Sergei spent his summer dreaming of a team of werewolves and all of the things that they could do together now that everyone would be on equal footing, now that everyone would be in the know.

No matter how the season went, it was still going to be pretty cool.

It wasn’t until he’d arrived for training camp that Sergei remembered one fatal flaw in all of his plans:

Despite literally everybody’s assumptions, Scott Hartnell, Columbus’s new forward, was not, in fact, a werewolf.

Sergei had known that, of course, back when he was in Philadelphia, but it had been surprising back then too.  Hartsy  _seemed_  like the kind of guy who had to be a werewolf.  His looks, his demeanor – if you were to make a random guess at who in the league was a werewolf, you would probably peg a guy like Scott Hartnell.

(Then again, Brent Burns seemed to be a prime candidate for a half-man half-beast forest creature, and he was entirely human. Just goes to show what happens when you make assumptions.)

Honestly, it was Hartsy’s own fault that Sergei forgot he wasn’t actually a wolf.  If he didn’t want Sergei to forget, he shouldn’t have acted so wolf-like.

“Are you  _sure_  he’s not a wolf?” Jared had asked on the first day of camp, bumping his shoulder up against Sergei’s.

Sergei could understand his confusion, especially seeing how the cubs were already piled up around Scott, seeking out his attention like he was the coolest guy they’d ever seen – or the toughest wolf.

“Completely human,” he’d replied, shaking his head in disappointment.  “And he doesn’t know about wolves.”

Fedya stood at Sergei’s other side, catching his eye and raising a brow.

“What do we do?”

Sergei thought about it for a moment, about what it would look like if they kept just one teammate separated from the rest, if they treated him differently, if they made him feel left out of the group.

He also thought about what it would look like if they didn’t differentiate between humans and wolves, if they treated him like a full member of the pack.

He shrugged.

“Team is pack.”

The other two, the longest-serving veterans on the team, gave only the slightest of pauses before they both nodded.

From that moment on, whether or not he knew it, Scott Hartnell was pack.

~~~

Sergei tried to ease him into it slowly, figuring that he would give Hartsy some time to get used to a new team and a new city before springing some of the more…eccentric aspects of the pack on him. Let him get a feel for the team, make some friends, start to feel at home, before bringing out some of the weirder stuff.

In this instance, for the first time, his pack really failed to follow his lead.

It started with Wennberg and Dano, the two newest cubs on the team who seemed to have decided that Hartsy was their idol in all things both werewolf and hockey.  Hartsy reacted to their clinginess with aplomb, likely brushing it off as rookie hero worship, which in a way it was.

He still looked a little confused when he found Wenny sniffing at his hair, though, and it wasn’t really normal for Dano to keep grabbing onto the hem of his shirt like he might get lost crossing the locker room if he didn’t hold on.

Sergei had to round up the cubs the night of their first road trip and corral them into his own hotel room just to keep them from trying to spend the night in Scott’s.

“You know he doesn’t know about wolves,” he told them, looking down into two equally guilty furred faces.  “He does not expect teammates to sleep in his bed.”

They had whined pretty pathetically at that, but Sergei had to put his foot down somewhere, even if they were cute.

He had really expected better from his older packmates, though.

Maybe they just took treating all of your teammates as pack a little too far.

First there were Joey and Cam, who were young but were certainly old enough to know better, having absolutely no reservations about plopping their asses down in Hartsy’s lap on a team night at Sergei’s house. Hartsy had just laughed and put an arm around each of their waists, making a comment about Giroux doing the same thing when he was drunk. Sergei could attest from personal experience that Claude Giroux would sit in just about anyone’s lap when he was drunk. Joey and Cam, however, were entirely sober at the time, and so Sergei didn’t feel too guilty giving them a look.

They both ducked their heads and blushed, but didn’t move from their seats.

Then it was Mark, who was  _really_  old enough to behave himself, growling playfully at Hartsy when he stole a french fry off his plate when some of the team went out for lunch.

“Got a frog in your throat there, eh?” Scott had asked, a smug smirk in place as he chewed.

“More like a wolf,” Dubi had muttered, adding himself to the list of people with whom Sergei had to have a Conversation.

And Sergei had really expected better of Tema than to help Boone and Ryan make off with some of Hartsy’s clothes so that the pack could scent them.

“He doesn’t smell enough like pack,” Tema had said with an unrepentant shrug.  “We’re fixing the problem.”

“Stealing his clothes is not fixing the problem,” Sergei said, even as he sniffed at Hartsy’s sweatshirt and gave it a cursory swipe against his own neck before handing it back.  They’d already done the stealing, after all, he may as well make use of it.

“Besides,” he told Tema, “When he washes them the scent will be gone.”

Tema was entirely unbothered.

“Then we will just steal them again.”

When Hartsy came into the dressing room asking if anyone had seen his sweatshirt, they all made a point of not looking at him.

Things came to a head when Savy let his Quebecois roots get the best of him.

They were all at Sergei’s house again, this time for a yay-we-have-an-off-day-and-the-weather-isn’t-awful-yet cookout that would probably as the night went on (and after Scott went home) devolve into wolves covering every soft surface in the house and Sergei having to fight for a place on his own bed.

Some of the boys had been chirping back and forth, as they were wont to do, and it had turned into Hartsy and Savy getting into a scuffle, laughing and cursing as they rolled around on the floor.  That in and of itself wasn’t particularly abnormal even for human teammates (hockey players were, in a general sense, not too far removed from wolves when you got right down to it).

The abnormal part was when Savy bit Hartsy on the arm.

As someone who had been on the receiving end of that very same treatment before, Sergei knew intellectually that it was probably less of a true bite and more of a prolonged mouthing that involved too many teeth and a bit of gentle gnawing.  For reasons that Sergei had never been able to understand, this was the culturally accepted practice for Quebecois wolves expressing their affection. He’d gotten somewhat used to having his tail nipped and his ears gnawed on during his time in Philly.

It was safe to assume, however, that Claude Giroux had probably never tried to chew on Scott Hartnell before (it would be even more surprising if Briere or Lecavalier had done it, but then again, you never knew).

It wasn’t surprising, then, that Hartsy froze and yelped, “Dude, what the fuck? Are you  _biting_  me?”

Savy, when he pulled away, did not appear nearly as guilty as he should have. The worst part was, Sergei couldn’t really give him a speech about keeping his teeth to himself without coming off as culturally insensitive.

“You’re not bleeding,” Savy said with a shrug, like that was the problem at hand.

“You  _bit_  me,” Hartsy repeated, his voice high and incredulous, like he might start laughing at any moment because he just couldn’t believe it.

“Hey, didn’t Letang say you bit him once?” Wiz asked. Sergei couldn’t tell if he was trying to distract Hartsy or if he was honestly curious, but either way, he looked far too amused for what could be a dicey situation.

Hartsy frowned immediately and pointed at Wiz. “That didn’t happen.  Also, he just  _bit me_.”

“It means he likes you,” Chaput said helpfully. “You only bite the people you like.”

Nick groaned and dropped his head into his hands; Sergei couldn’t do that, because he had to do some emergency damage control as Hartsy’s face quickly grew more incredulous.

_“What the fuck?”_

Before Sergei even got a chance to bullshit up an explanation, or just try to lay everything out in a calm and logical way that wouldn’t send Scott running for the hills (or the GM, asking for a trade), the sound of nails skittering on hardwood came clattering through the house.

A furry Wenny and Marko came rocketing around the corner and vaulted into the room, feet sliding out from under them as they failed to gain traction and came skidding across the floor.  Jared came right after them with two legs too many for present company, freezing when he realized that the two wayward cubs he’d been pursuing – likely to keep them from doing exactly this – had launched themselves at Hartsy, who was still on the floor from his bout with Savy, and were currently making themselves comfortable lying atop him, looking back at Jared as if he couldn’t possibly dream of removing them.

Jared at least looked suitably apologetic, for a wolf, when he met Sergei’s gaze. He carefully slunk forward, gently bit at the nape of a squirming Marko’s neck, and  _yanked_  him away from Hartsy, a chastising growl rumbling low in his throat the entire time.

Marko yelped in surprise and then whined miserably, craning his head to send a pitiful look back at Scott and Wenny. Jared growled again and shook Marko slightly, just enough to make him shut up.

Everyone fell silent.  Scott stared at Jared and Marko, both of whom were staring at Sergei. Sergei stared at Scott, completing the triangle.

Sergei cleared his throat quietly.

“Alex, please get off of Scott.”

Wenny pinned his ears back and immediately started to whine, but Sergei only had to raise an eyebrow for him to slink away towards Cam and Joey, who were notoriously soft touches.

Hartsy watched him go, pulling himself at least into a proper sitting position, and looked up at Sergei.

“Dude.  Dude, what the fuck.”

Sergei gave him a small smile.

“We, ah, we have some things to tell you.  About team.”

“Are those fucking  _wolves_?”

Marko whined and the tip of his tail wagged, even as Jared still held him in place by his neck.

Jared’s tail was wagging just as much.

“…Yes,” Sergei conceded, “These are wolves. Also…these are teammates.”

He took a deep breath, put on his best smile, and said, “We are werewolves.”

“Surprise!” Nick, bless him, actually did jazz hands.

Hartsy looked between the two of them, then back at Marko and Jared (who had finally let go of Marko).  Marko, impulsive like only a pup could be, took that as his cue to shift right in front of Hartsy, who looked like he might be sick.

(Sergei couldn’t quite blame him for that. Shifting came naturally and painlessly to every wolf, but the process was, from a very objective standpoint, visually disgusting.)

“What the fuck,” Hartsy whispered.

Marko edged closer to him, entirely uncaring that he was currently completely nude.

“You’re not mad, are you?” he asked quietly.

Scott stared at him with wide, wide eyes before he looked back at Sergei.

“This is-”  He stopped and swallowed.  “You’re saying that – you too?”

Sergei nodded, and then shrugged.

“All of us.”

“ _All_  of you?  You’re all…?” He waved a hand at Jared, who was still shifted.

“Werewolves, yes.”

The guys around them nodded, but remained thankfully silent.

Hartsy’s voice went up another octave. “Is  _everyone_  in the league a, a werewolf? Were the Flyers all werewolves?”

“Danny and G, Richie, Lecavalier, Bryz, Kimmo, Jagr…but the rest are all humans!” Sergei was quick to add that in as Scott’s face grew paler and paler.

“All of them, they could all do  _that_?  Turn into wolves?”

Sergei nodded slowly.

Scott didn’t say anything for a few seconds, and it was as if everyone held their breath, waiting for him to pass judgment.

When he did, his face turned into the severest of frowns. Sergei began to brace himself, wondered how he could defend his pack, when-

“Are you telling me that  _Claude Giroux_  was a  _werewolf_  and I wasn’t able to figure it out?”

“I mean, literally all of us are werewolves and you didn’t figure it out either,” Wiz said.

Everyone started nodding.

“There were some pretty clear signs, man,” Joey added. “I mean, we’ve pretty much been all over you.”

“So was G- son of a bitch…”

“You aren’t very observant, are you,” Dubi said, his voice full of mock-pity as he shook his head.

“It’s okay.” Savy, the biter himself, patted Hartsy on the head. “We still love you.”

Hartsy blinked at him, and then turned to stare at Sergei once more.

“Just to make this clear,” he said. “You all – every single one of you – turn into furry four-legged creatures.  And you’re in charge.”

Here he gestured at Sergei.

“And you all trust me enough not to expect me to go running off screaming into the night.”

“Eh, more or less,” Wiz muttered.

When the cubs all gave him their most affronted expressions, he held up his hands and said, “Christ, I was joking, yes, we trust him.”

Sergei felt a bloom of fondness in his chest for his ridiculous pack.

“Yes to all,” he told Scott.  “We say that team is pack, so you are pack too.  If you want.”

“We want you in our pack,” Marko said very solemnly.

Hartsy eyed him briefly.

“You getting cold there bud?” he asked in a leading voice, obviously trying not to look at Marko who was, yes, still entirely nude.

“No.”

“…well okay then.  To answer your question, yes, I will be part of your pack- oof!”

He was suddenly crushed back to the floor under the weight of not only Marko, but Savy and Chaput, and then Wenny rushed over with Cam and Joey, and Calvy and Murray were sneaking in too, until Hartsy was veritably buried in overly happy wolves, most of whom were currently just extremely handsy humans.

“-I will be part of your pack on the contingency that you put some damn pants on, Jesus Christ!” Hartsy yelped from under the pile.

Sergei exchanged glances with Nick.

“Not what I imagined, but…” He shrugged.

Nick smiled, that bright-eyed, toothy smile that grew like a sunrise across his face, his blue eyes intent on Sergei’s like he’d never want to look anywhere else.

“All’s well that ends well,” Nick said, clapping a hand on Sergei’s shoulder.

He left it there, the warmth of his hand a sure and steady weight, as their pack descended into happy chaos around them, guys shifting left and right, Hartsy squawking about  _not wanting to see that, God,_ the veterans joining in on the impromptu wolf pile and not even mildly attempting to rein anyone in.

They were all beautiful, and they were Sergei’s.

“You know,” Nick said in a slow, conversational tone that he only got when he was playing coy, “I hear it’s good for pack cohesion if the alpha participates in the pack’s activities.”

Sergei smirked.

“You want to welcome Hartsy to the pack?”

The hand on Sergei’s shoulder squeezed slowly, edging the slightest bit closer to his neck.

“It’s only right.”

“Well then, we cannot make them wait.”

Somewhere under a pile of squirming, yipping wolves, Scott Hartnell was complaining between bouts of laughter about how he would turn them all into rugs.  Nobody seemed to really care.

Yes, Sergei thought with a smile, he really did have the best pack.


	37. Predators: Paulie Meets the Pack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> flufflybunnypants asked about Paulie meeting the Nashville pack for the first time. This takes place over the summer of 2015, following Truly, and is necessary reading to understand the upcoming third part of the Nashville trilogy.
> 
> 12/4/17

“Everyone just be yourselves, okay? But like, better versions. No wait, you’re already great, just like – be the best you that you can be. Be the way that your mom would want you to be. Not that Paulie’s like a mom – well, no, he does have a lot of parental qualities, but he’s really more of a dad-type with the whole redheaded lumberjack thing he has going on – does that make me the mom? No, wait, doesn’t matter.”

James clasped his hands together in front of his chest, took a deep breath, and let it out in one big gust.

“Please, please just be good, and don’t be assholes, because I really want him to love you guys as much as I do. Not that I  _don’t_ think he’ll like you, but like, just…please be good? For me?”

Five sets of wolfy eyes stared back at him from five furry heads, all lined up in a row and watching him with as unimpressed an expression as wolves could have.

James clapped his hands once loudly.

“Okay, great, good talk, glad we got that settled…also, could you all be like human and also have clothes on by the time I get back? Not that your wolfy-selves aren’t great, but like, it’s not super easy to make introductions when nobody can talk – well, like,  _real_  introductions and not whatever weird scent things you guys do. Just, can we do that? Two legs and also put pants on? Okay, thanks, see you in a bit.”

James didn’t run out of his own house, because that would be stupid, but he did walk at a fast pace and slam the door behind him.

It was maybe just ever so slightly possible that he was nervous about Paul coming to meet his pack.

Paul had signed with the Sharks on the first day of free agency, which James had mixed emotions about. On the one hand, he was now in the same conference as James and they would get to play each other more often. It was a new start for Paul, and he had been excited all summer, looking at real estate listings and things to do around San Jose, already planning what they would do when the Predators came out to play the Sharks.

On the other hand, Paul was starting over in a new, relatively unknown situation, leaving behind all of the friends and teammates he’d shared with James in Pittsburgh. Geographically, he was much further away from James; while they hadn’t been able to see each other much during the last season, it had been comforting to at least know that if there was an emergency, James could get a quick flight to Pittsburgh. Not that flying to San Jose was an incredibly long trip, but the sheer miles between them…it was different.

It had been weird, holing up in Paul’s house (their house, really) in Pittsburgh while Paul made lists of what he had to bring with him right away and what he could have sent later, people he needed to contact in San Jose, appointments he had to set up. When James had moved to Nashville, he just threw most of his important shit into boxes and brought it all to Dicky’s house. Getting his own place had been an afterthought; he’d chosen the second house the realtor showed him, mostly because he thought that Paul would like it.

Maybe real estate just appealed to Paulie’s old man Minnesotan proclivities, but Paul was really excited to shop for a place in San Jose. He was planning on keeping the house in Pittsburgh, “for now, until things settle and we can figure out what’s happening next,” but he wasn’t just looking for a house to rent in San Jose, he was buying a  _home_. James couldn’t even remember how many listings Paul had shown him, how many times he’d had a screen shoved in his face with the words, “What about this one?”

(James could put up with a lot of nonsense from Paul, but he had drawn the line at looking at real estate listings in bed. He’d found that rolling on top of him usually set off a whole chain of distractions that were more than enough to get him to put the tablet away for the night.)

It was cute, seeing Paul so excited, even if it made James nervous to think about all of the coming changes in their lives. He appreciated why Paul was so dedicated to including him in the search process, even if they both knew that James could be pretty comfortable living in a cardboard box, if it had Netflix and Paulie’s scrambled eggs.

“I just want to make sure it’s someplace you’ll like,” Paul had said, “It’s going to be your home, too, even if you aren’t there a lot.”

The idea was sweet, and James did his best to let Paul know that he understood and appreciated it. He didn’t go with Paul though when he went to actually tour some of the houses on his way-too-long short-list in San Jose. Paul would be meeting with a lot of the team’s staff while he was there and James didn’t want to be a distraction.

After all of his deliberation, Paul was quick to choose a place, and then it was a flurry of documentation and signing papers and closing on the house in record time and then he was back in Pittsburgh, packing what he could into his car to take it to California. He wanted to have everything set up in his new place well before training camp began.

“You sure you don’t want to drive with me?” Paul had asked. “We could make a road trip out of it.”

It had been tempting, just to be able to spend the extra time with Paul, but James had too many mixed emotions about the move to be able to ride along on Paulie’s enthusiasm train just yet, not without bringing him down.

“No, you go get everything set up the way you want it so that it’ll be ready when I come by. You know I’m shit at unpacking.”

Given that James’s house in Nashville still had some boxes shoved into closets and corners that he’d never bothered to unpack from Pittsburgh (and that he’d taken months to finally stop living out of boxes and actually  _use_  said closets and cupboards in the first place), nobody could really argue that point.

“Besides,” James added, trying to lighten up his tone, “I have to go down to Nashville and make sure my place is still standing before your visit.”

That had been the result of one of their many, many conversations that summer about their relationship and their careers and how they were going to deal with not only the separation, but the whole wolf-thing. Paulie had, after all, agreed to adopt James’s wolf-children with him, so it made sense that he should probably meet them all at some point.

The plan was for Paul to get everything settled in San Jose, and then for him to join James in Nashville, where he’d meet the pack. It was August, so guys were starting to trickle back into town. James didn’t have to pester his packmates too hard to get them to agree to come back early – he got the feeling that even if they’d enjoyed their summers, they’d missed the pack as much as he had, or maybe more, what with the whole pack imperative thing.

James had to work a bit harder to convince Rich to join them. He’d been bought out at the end of June and had signed with the Toronto Marlies a week later. Because Rich was an idiot at times, he thought that meant that he was no longer a part of their pack. They’d had more than a few heart to hearts over the summer for James to correct that notion.

“I mean, yes, technically you wouldn’t be part of Nashville’s pack anymore,” he told Rich when they met up in July; James had dragged Paul to Canada with him to properly meet his parents, and Toronto wasn’t that far from Whitby. “But then again, technically  _I’m_  not a part of the pack either. But everyone said I was, so I am. And so if I say you’re still pack, then you are. For as long as you want it.”

He’d grimaced then, a new thought coming to him.

“I mean, if you  _do_  want it, that is.”

The look Rich had given him was long and unreadable, but then he’d clapped a hand on James’s shoulder and said, “Yeah, Jimmy, for as long as you’ll have me.”

Well, Rich had agreed to it, and so James had absolutely no problems with hauling him down to Nashville to meet Paul with the pack.

(He hadn’t brought Paul to his earlier conversation with Rich; Paul got a little squirrely whenever James talked about Rich, and he figured it would be easier for them to meet in a group setting where they weren’t focusing so much on each other and whatever weirdness there was between them.)

Rich had sold his house, and so it was expected that he would stay at James’s house. Maz too, because he was going to be in Nashville for training camp but was expected to be sent down to Milwaukee again, so his only other option was a hotel.

The other three presumably had their own places to live, but nobody would know it given how fast they’d set themselves up in James’s house.

“This is a sleepover, right?” It was more of a statement than a question, particularly given that Calle was dragging some bags into James’s house with him as he spoke.

“Um, not really? I mean, Paul’s supposed to be here for a few days, and I have extra room but like not that much? And Maz and Rich are already staying…”

“So the whole pack’s staying over, awesome.” Goose came in after Calle, also carrying his own luggage.

James thought to lean out the door and check and yep, there was Carter, who had tastefully limited himself to one bag, making it look a little bit less like he was trying to move in.

“Did you guys time this or something?”

Carter was grinning as he made it up the front steps, dropped his bag, and pulled James in for a hug.

“You called an offseason pack meeting, man,” he said, holding James tight and speaking against his ear. “There’s no way that we’re not bunking up with you, you should know better.”

And yeah, James was figuring this all out as he went, but at this point he probably should have known better.

“Okay, but like, I really only have the one spare bedroom and I don’t think Paul’s going to want you all sharing a bed with us.”

Goose put a hand over his heart, looking horribly offended.

“I thought you said he was going to be our new wolf-dad!”

James made a face and closed the door behind him.

“Dude, he’s only like, a year older than you.”

“Your point?”

That had set the tone for the last few days. The pack was being, well, the pack, namely constantly getting under foot and knocking over anything that wasn’t nailed down as they chased each other around the house and insisting on sleeping in James’s bed with him no matter how many times he tried to get them used to sleeping in a group on their own without him.

“Come on guys, you managed a whole summer without me!”

_“Exactly.”_

James still wouldn’t have had it any other way. He’d missed those losers, missed how they would pretend they didn’t care about his assortment of dog toys up until someone else showed an interest in them, how they were all total pushovers for fetch, and yes, he’d missed the cuddling.

That didn’t mean that he wasn’t still nervous as fuck for all of his favorite people to meet each other.

He wasn’t nervous about picking up Paul from the airport. That was pretty much guaranteed to be one of the bright spots in his day, because he loved everything about Paul and it sucked every time they were apart, even for a week or two. But nobody could blame him for that, because Paul was his wolf-mate and also his  _fiancé_.

(That word would never get old. He’d referred to Paul as “my  _fiancé_ ” so much in the past few months that his mom had asked if he still remembered Paul’s name.)

James was pretty much vibrating with excitement by the time he spotted Paul entering the arrivals area. He looked good, stupidly good. Apparently all of that California sunshine was agreeing with him, even though he had some of the pastiest skin James had ever seen.

“Have you been using that sunscreen I got you?” James asked in greeting, unable to keep a big, goofy grin from taking over his face.

He was in luck, because Paulie wasn’t doing much better as he dropped his luggage and wrapped his arms around James in a warm, tight hug that felt like home.

It went on maybe a bit longer than two supposedly unattached hockey players were supposed to hug each other in a public space, but part of the joys of living in Nashville was the general anonymity that being an ice hockey player in Nashville afforded you. Nobody paid them much mind as they embraced, and nobody but them knew about the tiny kiss that Paulie placed just behind James’s ear.

“God, I missed you,” Paul said. His voice had gone huskier than normal, but there was still a smile on his face as he dragged himself away, still keeping one hand on James’s shoulder.

“I missed you too. This season is going to suck.” Even as James spoke he knew he was still smiling too much for the words to have much weight.

Paul still nudged him playfully with his hip, shouldering his bag again while James grabbed the handle of his suitcase.

“It’ll be fine,” Paul said, reaching out to run his hand over James’s neck even as they headed for the parking lot. “It’s going to be an adjustment, but we’ll be fine.”

They’d beaten the topic to a pulp the last few months, rehashing it regularly enough that by now they were just going through the motions.

“Besides, you’re going to love the new house,” Paul said, something delighted and maybe a little smug creeping into his voice. James nearly walked in the complete opposite direction of his car because he was too distracted by the little crinkling laugh lines that appeared around Paul’s eyes when he smiled.

“Oh?” James said absently. He swallowed heavily and did his best to avoid walking directly into oncoming traffic.

Paul seemed to notice his distraction but it only made him smile more, obviously very pleased with himself.

“Yes. Four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a finished basement with an entertainment area if we wanted to have people over. Big kitchen, new appliances…”

“That’s the important part,” James said. “I don’t want to be fed from subpar appliances.”

He kept his gaze fixed on the ground now, finding it easier than watching Paul’s face as he spoke – or letting Paul see the mix of emotions roiling around behind his own eyes.

Paulie probably knew him too well at this point, because his free hand stroked lightly over James’s arm before he entwined his fingers with James’s own, not caring that they were out in public in broad daylight where anyone could see them.

Well, when you were engaged to someone, it probably  _was_  time to stop hiding your relationship.

“The house has a bit of its own property behind it, too,” Paul said, his voice slow and carefully measured, “A small wooded area so that there’s room to run around in the yard. The nearest neighbors are far enough away that they won’t be able to see something weird and start getting ideas.”

They were coming up on James’s car now. They both stopped next to the trunk, their hands still held loosely between them, comfortably.

James wasn’t sure how to speak around the emotions that were settling high in his throat.

“Oh, yeah?” he said in a thin, too enthusiastic voice. “That’s, uh, that’ll be good, for when you want to get out of the house and go all wolfy and all…”

He could feel Paul’s eyes on him, too intense and tender for an airport parking lot.

“Or if I have any of my new packmates over,” Paul said evenly. “Or if you have any of your pack over.”

Oh.

Oh, wow.

“That’s, uh…you’d want them to come visit?”

Paul sighed, but it was fond, just like the smile curling around the edges of his lips. He squeezed James’s hand in his own, like this was all just so easy.

“It’s your house too, Jamie, I told you that. Your pack is important to you, and if you ever want them to come visit, when your team is in town or over the summer or ten years from now, I want you to feel comfortable having them there.”

“Ten years?” Now James’s voice was audibly reedy, a half-laugh tethered in that confusing knot of emotions he didn’t know how to untangle. “That’s, uh, that’s a long time to be planning ahead with hockey contracts.”

Paul wasn’t perturbed, because Paul was actually pretty amazing.

“I’ve been giving it a lot of thought since I signed with the Sharks.” His voice was so steady and so genuine, and James couldn’t help meeting his eyes. He was lost in them immediately, as usual, caught up in the emotion there, the sincerity, the overwhelming love.

“I don’t know how long I’ll be in San Jose. I don’t know if I’ll get traded or bought out. I can’t predict what’s going to happen. Maybe I’ll be selling the house there in a year.

"But wherever I go, no matter where I live, there’s going to be a place for you there, and that means having a place for the people who are important to you too. That includes your family, and that includes your pack.”

James couldn’t breathe. It was like Paul’s words had sucked the air from his lungs, and his small, hopeful little smile had done him in and now he was dead and had ascended to a higher plane of being where his handsome, wonderful, perfect  _fiancé_  somehow made sense as a person that he, James, someone who had to look up a YouTube tutorial on how to make a bed, actually deserved.

“That’s…oh. That’s…but like what if, we don’t know who my pack might be in a few years, because Rich is gone now but he’s still my pack. What if they’re all gone from the team but still my pack? What if I adopt new wolves and then they’re gone too but still my pack? What if I like, accidentally adopt the whole league and then the whole _league_  is my pack?”

It sounded ridiculous even as he said it, but it also felt increasingly plausible. James was a sucker for a sad werewolf, and the NHL seemed to have those in spades.

Paul was watching him with narrowed eyes and a disbelieving smirk. He huffed quietly to himself and shook his head, his smile only growing.

“Jamie,” he said, “In the event that you somehow _accidentally_  adopt  _the entire NHL_ , I guess it’s a good thing that I bought a house with four bedrooms.”

“It wouldn’t be the whole NHL. Just the wolfy part.”

Paul was laughing now, the sound of it making James feel warm and bright like the sun shining down on his back.

“My point still stands. If you somehow end up adopting dozens of wolves, they would still be welcome, because they’d be important to you.”

“That’s good.” James nodded, smiling like an idiot and staring into Paulie’s eyes.

A car drove by, startling him back to reality.

“Oh, right.”

He fumbled his keys from his pocket and unlocked the trunk, helping Paul stow away his bags. Paul didn’t have to bring much; James had stolen some of his things from Pittsburgh a while back, “just in case Paul forgot to bring them when he visited,” but mostly because he liked the comforting familiarity of having some of Paul’s things around, of knowing that his place smelled a bit like Paul even if he couldn’t sense it himself.

It was as they were getting into the car that a thought occurred to James.

“Oh, about the whole ‘multiple bedrooms’ thing…I wasn’t lying about my adopted wolf-children being really bad at sleeping in their own beds. Or their own houses.”

Paulie raised an eyebrow.

“Meaning…?”

“Uh, meaning that they’re all staying at my house and will also probably try to sleep in bed with us. Um…surprise?”

Paul stared at him for a long moment, long enough that James feared he might actually be upset about this new development, before he shook his head.

“I guess having a pack really  _is_  like training for having kids,” he muttered as he got in the car and closed the door behind him.

James continued standing there, gripping the door handle but unable to move as he replayed that sentence in his brain, letting it tick over a few times and still unable to make any sense of what Paul meant or how that made him feel.

He shelved it, like he did so many things, and got in the car.

He had a pack to introduce.

~~~

Everyone was human and wearing not only pants but also shirts when they arrived back at the house, so James was chalking that one up as a big victory.

(He’d had some honest fears that some of them might think that boxers were sufficient as pants, which they absolutely were not. “If you can’t go to the grocery store in them, then you can’t meet my almost-husband in them.”)

The guys were all lined up neatly on the two couches in the living room when they came in, which was actually kind of weird and off-putting. The house looked cleaner than he’d left it, like someone had actually vacuumed the carpets again and maybe the upholstery too. The assorted toys and bones that had taken over James’s house were all stowed in a basket in the corner.

Calle appeared to have put some product in his hair, which he probably thought made him look more presentable.

Wow. The boys had actually put some serious effort into this.

James couldn’t help the warm feeling blooming in his chest.

“Well,” he said, looking awkwardly between his too-well-behaved pack and his Paulie, “Everyone, this is Paul. Paulie, this is…everyone.”

_Everyone_ , including Paul, either scoffed or rolled their eyes at his introduction. James couldn’t even be offended because he was too busy excitedly thinking that they would all get along just great.

“We heard you’re going to be our father,” Goose said.

Fuck that noise, his pack was horrible and James hated everybody.

Paul made a noise like he was caught halfway between laughing and choking.

“That is not what I told them,” James rushed to say, “I told them that you were my wolf-mate and they sort of created their own conclusions.”

Paul was actually laughing now. “Does this mean that you’re their mother?”

“No – I mean, maybe – sort of yes, but only because – wait, why can’t we both just be the dad?”

James absolutely wasn’t whining, because that would be embarrassing.

“Nealer’s our alpha,” Maz said in the fond sort of voice that someone would use to talk about a particularly dumb puppy that they still adored anyway. “He tries very hard, and we love him very much.”

Aw. That was actually pretty sweet.

“Even when he thinks that Febreze can get rid of any and all wolf scents, we still love him,” Rich added.

Nope, fuck him, James’s pack sucked.

“I like the candles better,” Calle said in a bright voice, like he was trying to be helpful. “They don’t block any scents but they smell nicer than the sprays do.”

“The label said it neutralizes odors!” James was probably actually whining now.

His pack all shook their heads slowly.

“No, but it was a nice thought, though,” Carter said, his face full of mock-sympathy.

“God, you guys suck,” James muttered, turning away from them and pacing a few steps away. “I can’t believe that I wanted to introduce you to Paul.”

When he turned around again his eyes immediately sought out Paul, who was actually…smiling?

Yes, Paul appeared to be thoroughly enjoying himself, because everyone seemed to enjoy James’s pain.

“You’re awful too,” James said, pointing at him, “You’re supposed to be on my side.”

“The Febreze  _is_  pretty terrible.”

James would have been more offended, but Paulie’s eyes were fucking _twinkling_  and his cheeks were red and he was smiling and in what world could James ever be upset when faced with  _that_?

“You all suck,” he muttered weakly, because he still wasn’t above sulking.

Paul pulled him in with an arm around his shoulders and pressed a kiss to his temple, and that kind of made things better, even if it was done to a soundtrack of groans and retching sounds from the pack, except for Maz, who just sighed happily.

“It’s so nice when everyone is happy,” he said, “You two should get married.”

Paul pulled away just enough so that James could see his quirked eyebrow and the start of a smirk.

“Didn’t we cover that part already?” he asked James in a low voice that the pack could still undoubtedly hear.

“Of course I- no, wait, nope, I didn’t.”

James turned to the pack and clasped his hands together in what was quickly becoming his “I have to talk to the kids now” pose.

“Uh, guys, bit of news I think I forgot to pass on, but Paulie and I are actually engaged now as of, like, May. We’re already getting married. So, uh…yeah. Good talk.”

He didn’t know what he was expecting, but he’d imagined a little bit more excitement and well-wishes instead of, well.

“Geeze, Paul, you couldn’t even bother to put a ring on it?” Goose shook his head in disappointment.

James balked, stuttering, “I mean, I don’t even wear rings, I’m not a ring sort of guy-”

“You do not have a ring?” Now Maz had done a complete 180 and looked like his dreams had been crushed.

“Guys, I don’t  _need_ a ring!”

“You should at least have one, it’s the principle of the thing,” Goose argued.

Carter tsked and shook his head.

“I, for one, am offended on your behalf.”

“I don’t need you guys to be  _offended_  for me because I’m perfectly fine with it! I don’t need proof that I’m engaged, I’m already pretty aware that I am seeing as I was the one who proposed. If anything, I’m the one who should have gotten  _Paul_ a ring.”

Well that just set off a whole new round of scandalized expressions and intentionally overdramatic gasps.

“Nealer, we raised you better than that,” Carter said.

Goose was shaking his head. “Paul, we owe you an apology, it’s not your fault that Nealer is a cad.”

“What’s a cad?” Calle asked, frowning.

“Your alpha,” Carter said brightly, ruffling Calle’s over-gelled hair just to hear him squawk in protest.

James was kind of considering the logistics of melting into the floor, and had already begun creeping his way behind Paulie for protection, but Paul reached out and grabbed his hand, his face somehow even brighter than before.

“I’m not really a ring person either,” Paul said quietly, somewhat more private now that the pack had devolved into growling and complaints about messing up each other’s hair and “It’s really hard to make that look any worse,  _Carl_ "s.

"So no engagement rings.” James reached out to catch Paul’s other hand in his own, rubbing his thumb over Paul’s knuckles as he did. “Wedding rings, though?”

“We can do wedding rings,” Paul said with a nod. “And chains to wear them on if we don’t want them on our hands.”

James smiled, pressing in close enough that their noses brushed.

“See, I knew we had this whole engagement thing down.”

“ _Ew_ , it’s like watching your parents make out!”

James heaved a sigh and looked back at his pack, whining, “C'mon, half of you are older than me!”

“And it’s just as gross every time,” Goose said, shuddering.

“You only just met Paulie like five minutes ago!”

Things only got worse from there, because his packmates were all still hockey players, and there was no suppressing a hockey player who had just found a wealth of new chirping material.

But Paul’s arm was resting comfortably around James’s waist and they were leaning into each other, warm and familiar, and he could feel as Paul’s body shook with laughter, and his pack were all smiling and happy, and maybe everything was going to be alright.

(Rich was oddly quiet the whole time that Paul was there, sticking to himself more than usual and sneaking odd glances at James and Paul when he thought they weren’t looking.

(When James asked if he was okay, Rich gave him a tight smile and clapped a hand on his shoulder.

(“I’m happy for you guys,” he said. “You’re really good together.”

(He’d left then, wandering off to go bother Calle, and James had been left to wonder if he’d missed something important.)

~~~

Paul had said he understood about the pack sharing their bed that night, but it wasn’t until they actually went to bed that he finally understood the reality of the situation.

“James? How are we supposed to fit in this bed when it’s literally already full of wolves?”

“Shh,” James hushed, getting into bed by climbing over Carter and falling into the crevice between his warm, furry back and Maz’s, keeping his legs close to his body so that he could then maneuver them underneath Calle until he was properly laying down.

“See?” he said, smiling brightly at Paul. “It’s easy!”

Paul closed his eyes and sighed.

“You know,” he said with a hint of a smile, “If I didn’t believe it before, there would be no denying now that you’re their alpha.”

“Because I exude confidence and poise?”

“No, because only an alpha is so stupidly fond of their pack that they think that that’s a normal way to sleep.”

There were a few token grumbles from the pack, but Paul was unperturbed.

“But I _am_  marrying into this, so I guess it says something about me too.”

He then set about trying to move Goose enough that he could squeeze his way onto the bed.

James smiled and reached out across the pile of fur to hold Paul’s hand.

Yeah, this probably said something about the both of them, and it also brought into question the structural stability of James’s bed, but right now, he had all of his favorite werewolves in one place, and he couldn’t be happier.

“…Whichever one of you just _licked my leg_  I am going to kick you in the face if you do that again, I swear to God, we’ve talked about this!”

Okay, he could be a  _little_ bit happier. But not by much.


	38. Paulie/Nealer, Future

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is vague future domestic curtainfic that takes place sometime after Paul has retired but James is still playing hockey. It was partially inspired by jokes in the previous fic about if James somehow accidentally ended up adopting the entire NHL.
> 
> 12/5/17

When Paul had first seriously considered his life after retirement, somewhere around when he first signed in Pittsburgh, when his knees started cracking whenever he stood up and his back protested if he didn’t stretch properly before doing anything physical, he’d imagined moving somewhere quiet, somewhere with room to run and neighbors who didn’t pry. Maybe in Minnesota, to be closer to his family, unless he found somewhere that he liked better during his career. He would find something hockey-related to do with his time, maybe working with a charity or coaching kids. He’d always liked working with kids.

Then, when he met James, those plans started to shift to imagine two people. He would retire before James, he was sure – James was not only a few years younger but such a strong, dynamic player, Paul couldn’t see him retiring until they had to scrape him off the ice.

But once Paul had retired, he would go wherever James was. He would have to have something to do to keep him busy while James was away, some sort of job or cause to focus on, but there was admittedly something attractive about getting to be James’s house-husband. He liked taking care of James, liked cooking for him, providing for him. He wanted to give them a home for James to live in, to look after him when he got home from a game, to prove that he was a good mate for James, to prove that he could be – well, that he could be a good father.

And when  _James_  retired, they could go wherever they wanted, find that quiet home in the middle of nowhere, and maybe they could look into that second part of Paul’s plans.

And then James was traded to Nashville and adopted a pack of werewolves and all of Paul’s plans were turned upside down.

Paul hadn’t planned on being an alpha; he could mentor some cubs, sure, but he’d never planned on leading a pack. When he’d mated with James, he certainly hadn’t planned on his very human mate being an alpha either, mainly because he’d never thought that it was an actual thing that could happen in real life.

But that was James, wasn’t it? Always ruining all of Paul’s careful plans by giving him something that he’d never known he wanted.

After Nashville, Paul had to redesign his plans for the future to include himself, James, and whatever wolves James brought along with him. And because it was James, he couldn’t just let a packmate go when they left the team the way that a normal wolf would. Oh, no. Once you joined James Neal’s pack, you were his for life, no matter where you went or what other pack you joined. Other alphas had to get used to James checking in with their packmates like an overly concerned parent, because James didn’t let anybody go.

(Needless to say, over the years James did a wonderful job of gleefully ruining any sort of chance they’d ever had at keeping his human-alpha status quiet.)

But Paul embraced it all, took every change with aplomb, because he loved James and James loved his menagerie of hockey-playing werewolves. And so Paul made a space for them in his future, too, always ensuring that wherever he lived – wherever  _they_ lived – was prepared to host a potentially very large number of rowdy wolves.

The Nashville pack was one thing. They were a sizeable pack but not overly huge (they weren’t Columbus, for sure), and he got to know them well during James’s time there. Even after they’d all left Nashville, those were the same wolves who kept Skyping in during the season and coming around in the summer. Paul was used to them. They were his pack, too.

And then James went to Vegas, and that was the start of, well. Everyone else.

Paul was never quite sure how James managed it, because half of the players who James considered to be part of his pack had never actually played on the same team as him, but James had somehow gathered packmates to him like lint: nobody was ever quite sure where they came from, but they clung on once they got there and weren’t easy to get rid of.

He had teased James about adopting half of the NHL, but he hadn’t actually expected him to go through with it. Leave it to James to be an over-achiever.

Considering that most of these guys had to have family packs if not team packs to hang out with, it was never quite clear why they all wanted to spend so much of their off-season at his house, eating all his food and getting hair all over his furniture and wrestling indoors even though  _for the last time, we have acres of land, can you not do this outside?_

Paul was used to enforcing strict boundaries about his bedroom, about when the other guys were allowed to pile in for snuggles and when they all had to  _get out, seriously,_  because he would like some private time with his mate, thank you very much. Paul may have retired, but James was still playing, and the offseason was the one time of year when they could have lazy days together of sleeping in followed by morning sex followed by a late breakfast followed by more sex and – well, you get the picture.

It wasn’t exactly his idea of a good time to be kissing his way down his mate’s chest on a warm July morning only for a grown-ass adult hockey player to come bursting into his bedroom whining that they were out of eggs and also Matt took all of the fresh cow bones and won’t share and now the pups are sad, not him, he wasn’t bothered at all, this was all for the pups, really. Also, breakfast?

James had responded to that particular incident by lobbing a box of condoms at the interloper, causing him to yelp in horror (because those were  _his alpha’s condoms, ew_ ), and had barked at him to “figure it out for yourselves, you’re all fucking adults, fuck!”

Paul had never felt more personally vindicated or sexually attracted to James than in that moment.

The pack were on their own for breakfast that day.

In general, life with James’s pack wasn’t actually so bad. It was nice, having other wolves around, and they made James so happy. Paul could put up with the annoying habits and the occasionally bratty behavior (from adult professional hockey players  _who should know better_ ) if it would make James smile.

He did have to put down some ground rules though, the first of all being that if you were going to spend your time bumming around his house, then you had to contribute. That meant helping with meal prep, mopping, vacuuming, dishes, yard care – most of which Paul then had to  _teach_ to the other guys before they did anything, because they were all honestly so, so inept at being normal-ass adults, and Paul despaired for the state of the National Hockey League when it produced All-Star forwards who didn’t know how to boil pasta without supervision.

Laundry became a group activity, namely because Paul had started by telling everyone that they were responsible for their own clothing only for them to do unspeakable things to his washing machine within the first week because evidently half of these guys just paid someone else to do their laundry if they couldn’t get their mother or their significant other to do it.

(Paul had needed more than a few drinks after that revelation.)

So Paul had to start holding laundry classes, where everyone learned what clothing could be washed together under what circumstances, and how to sort out what could go into the washer from what needed to be dry-cleaned, and also how to wash your own hockey pads without the help of the equipment staff because  _dear God are you saying you’ve been training and you haven’t washed these all summer?_

He’d had to invest in a second washer and dryer, but it was worth it, if only so his first set didn’t keel over from overuse.

Paul also ended up taking over the grocery shopping trips, because whenever he sent James to the store with a list and a few packmates, he always came back with everything Paul had written down and dozens of things that he hadn’t (most of which were outside of any reasonable meal plan, naturally). James seemed honestly baffled as to how these things kept ending up in his cart, and also about how to stop it.

“I swear, I just get the stuff you wrote down,” he told Paul one day, frowning over each new, strange item that Paul pulled out of the grocery bags. “I don’t even remember seeing half of this stuff.”

Paul knew from shopping with James himself that James had a habit of adding extra things to the cart himself without paying much attention, but this was far and away more junk than James would have ever purchased. James bought things like Captain Crunch and an extra case of beer.

Fruit snacks and expensive foreign cheeses and those ubiquitous store bakery sugar cookies with so much icing on them that they made your teeth hurt? Those were the pack.

So Paul had to take over the grocery shopping too, which was honestly for the best seeing as he did most of the cooking anyway. James did buy everything he was asked to, bless him, but he was miserable at judging a good cut of meat or what produce was closer to turning. It saved Paul a lot of frustration to just do it himself.

That was also how he got to teach the pack how to shop with a budget.

The first time someone had started to sneak something extra into the cart – the instant oatmeal with the dinosaur eggs in it,  _really?_  – Paul had let out a low, quiet growl, too soft for humans to hear but intimidating enough to have the wolves around him freeze in place, the box of oatmeal hovering halfway over his cart.

“You all get  _one thing_ ,” Paul said, eyeing the assembled group so he knew he had their attention. “One thing, and if it’s not something you plan to share then you’re paying for it yourself. You’re all extremely wealthy, you can afford to pay for your own snacks.”

Part of it was just because Paul really cringed at the idea of paying for an honest to God bag of gumballs from the bulk candy section, but he told himself it was to teach the pack an important lesson about budgeting and finances.

James had stared at him with far too much wonder and awe when Paul came home with only one extra bag of groceries.

“I didn’t know that that was possible,” he breathed. “I thought the extra groceries just kind of, you know, happened, and that we were powerless to stop them.”

Sometimes Paul despaired a little bit of James’s bewilderment over things that honestly should not have been so complicated, but then James had reeled him in with a hand around the back of his neck and whispered, “God, Paulie, you’re amazing,” and kissed him so thoroughly that Paul was in danger of breaking his own rules about sexual activity in cooking spaces and-

Well. Paul was perfectly willing to do the shopping after that, if that was the response he got.

They fell into something of a routine in the summer. The pack came in waves, different guys visiting for a week or two before cycling out to head back home while others came in. There was rarely a time when it was just the two of them alone, unless Paul sent out a mass text enforcing it.

(There had been some grumbling when Paul swept James off to Europe for their anniversary, but Paul really didn’t give a shit because he got to have James, sun-kissed and smiling and all to himself. The pack would survive a few weeks without their alpha.)

It was around August, when guys started traveling back to North America but didn’t have to be in their respective cities for training camp yet, when things got a little insane.

Everything started off so slowly that it honestly took a while for Paul to realize that while new guys had been steadily showing up on their doorstep, nobody had been leaving.

It wasn’t until he walked into his yard on the night of a full moon to find literally dozens of wolves, wolves wrestling, wolves running, wolves laying on _all of his patio furniture_ , that he realized that maybe things had gone a little overboard.

“Jamie,” he said slowly, chancing a glance over at James who was watching the whole scene with an eerily manic smile. “I know you love your pack very much, and that you care about them and want them to be happy, but this is getting a little ridiculous, don’t you th-”

_“Look upon my kingdom, Paulie.”_

James spread his arms wide, as if to encompass all of the wolves who had overtaken their yard.

Paul counted to ten to keep from rolling his eyes.

By the time he was done counting he thought he might be able to make his point without saying something sarcastic or unintentionally insulting, but all of his careful scripts flew from his mind when James wrapped his arms around Paul’s waist and drew him in close, leaning into him and resting his chin on Paul’s shoulder.

“Thank you for this,” he whispered, his breath warm on Paul’s ear even in the muggy August evening. “For putting up with me and my pack, and for letting them invade our house all the time, and for being such a good wolf-dad to all of our little fail-wolves.”

He pressed a kiss against Paul’s neck, a chaste thing at the hinge of his jaw, and Paul nearly melted in his arms, so overcome with love for this ridiculous, wonderful man.

“You’re ridiculous,” Paul said, but he knew he was smiling so much that James would take it the way it was meant.

James grinned and pecked him on the lips before giving him a pat on the ass that was really much closer to a grope and saying, “Now go get changed, our pack is waiting for you.”

_Our pack._

It had a nice ring to it.

~~~

Okay, he could still do without the wars over his bed, though.

“We have more bedrooms!” Paul called out when he walked into his bedroom only to realize that he couldn’t make it to his own bed without tripping on a wolf. “You are all more than capable of setting yourselves up on some sort of rotation about who sleeps where.”

There was a loud collective whine, as well as some grumbling from the few who were hanging out in human form. Paul glared at them all, which seemed to be enough to get some guys slinking out of the room, even if they made it very clear that they were sulking about it.

There were still way too many bodies for the bed, no matter how large and reinforced it was.

“I am sleeping in my own bed, so someone is going to have to move,” he said.

James gave him a wide-eyed look, some new pup draped across his lap and clearly gloating about it to the others.

“But Paulie,” James said, “The cubs need to be cuddled!”

Now Paul did just roll his eyes, because he loved James to pieces, but James was a total pushover.

“They need to be close to the pack and their alpha, yes, but they will be more than fine sleeping with other packmates for the night. And – what the hell, Calle, you’re not even a pup!”

Calle narrowed his eyes from where he was curled up behind James.

“I am the original pup,” he said, shooting dark looks at the other wolves in the room.

“…You know what, fuck it, I don’t care, I’m going to sleep in the-”

There was another collective whine, even louder than before, and suddenly a clear space had been made on the bed with more than enough room for both Paul and James.

Paul made a show of huffing in exasperation as he made his way to the bed, but as soon as he sat down, James was leaning over to prod him in the ribs.

“You knew that would happen,” he accused quietly.

Paul only smiled, and said nothing.

James snorted and shook his head.

“You sly fucker. You know they don’t like it when Dad and Dad are apart.”

There was a round of barks, which James himself silenced with a glare and an “Excuse me, we’re pretending to have a private conversation here, maintain the illusion, people!”

“Can we stop calling them our children?” Paul asked. He knew it was futile – he’d been making that same request for years now with no results to show for it – but he felt he should make his protest known anyway.

This time, James just smiled and kissed him on the cheek.

“Well, I can’t give you kids right now, but I can give you wolves,” he said, unceremoniously dropping a gangly first-round draft pick into Paul’s lap. The pup, for his part, rolled over and licked at Paul’s hand until Paul started rubbing his stomach.

Paul was too distracted to do anything but comply, his brain still stuck back where James had said…

_“…right now?”_

James flushed and looked down at the pup in his lap, one hand stroking the pup’s back while the other was petting at Calle’s hair.

“I mean, we’re kind of busy and all, what with me still playing and like, a million and three wolves showing up at our house all the time, so it’s maybe not the best time for us  _right now_ , but like…I know your wolfy little biological clock is ticking, I mean, I see the way you get around people’s kids, you’re getting nearly as bad as Sid-”

“I am  _not_  as bad as Sid!” Paul sputtered.

James cracked a smile, reaching out to grab Paul’s hand and squeeze it.

“No, you’re not as bad as Sid,” he conceded. “But I know it’s something you want. So for now…”

He gestured at the wolves sprawled all over the room around them, and the more than a few who had crept onto the bed during their conversation.

“For now, we practice with hockey players who pretend to be adults.”

“I’m an adult,” Calle grumbled from somewhere around James’s hip.

James patted his head.

“I know. And that’s why you get to be our babysitter.”

Calle looked way too pleased at the prospect.

Paul stared at James, his heart in his throat, knowing his face was broadcasting every single one of his emotions.

“Jamie…”

James brought their joined hands to his mouth and kissed them, smiling the entire time.

“What can I say, Paulie. You’re my forever-wolf.”

“You guys are gross,” Carter grumbled, sprawled in a face-plant across the bottom of the bed.

“Dude, it’s been like how many years? You should really be used to us by now.”

“Still gross.”

“Aren’t you retired?” Calle groused, kicking a leg blindly in Carter’s direction even though he was nowhere near close enough to make contact.

“I’m retired  _and_  tired, and you all won’t shut the fuck up and let me sleep.”

Paul snorted and tossed a pillow at his head, which only resulted in Carter snatching it up and curling himself around it, as expected.

“You’re welcome to leave,” he said, though after years of this he knew what Carter’s response would be.

“Nope, I’m good,” he said with closed eyes, “You guys are disgustingly cute for being alphas, but you’re  _our_  disgustingly cute alphas.”

James looked like he might actually tear up at that declaration, which went to show that he spent way too much time around his pack.

“C'mon,” Paul said, setting the cub in his lap aside and nudging at James to do the same. “Even disgustingly cute alphas need to sleep.”

“You’re just regular-cute,” James told him with a flush on his face and a sappy smile.

There was a chorus of whines and groans in response to that, but Paul didn’t feel bad about flipping them all off. If they were unhappy, they were welcome to leave.

Paul turned off the lights and curled up around James’s back, holding him close as the wolves around them shifted to get closer, pressing in warmly around them.

It wasn’t how Paul had imagined his retired life would be, all those years ago. He hadn’t predicted James, and he most certainly hadn’t predicted James’s pack.

But reflecting on his life now, warm and safe with the man he loved and way too many werewolves who he was stupidly fond of all the same, he wouldn’t have changed a thing.

Except for the snoring. The snoring wolves he could do without.

And the lines to use his own bathroom. And trying to feed an army of hockey players on a daily basis.

Okay, there were a few things he would change.

But having James here in his arms, thinking about the new adventures they would have in a life after hockey…

Retirement was looking pretty damn good.


	39. Sharks: Thornton POV, Dadfic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompted: Sharks are def a dad team so does Paulie ever absentmindedly agree with one of the Sharks about some parenting thing? Does he take any of the parenting tips and pass them on to Nealer when Nealer has alpha problems?
> 
> This takes place early in the 2015-16 season and is narrated by Joe Thornton, who is not a wolf.
> 
> 12/6/17

Paul Martin was a pretty chill guy. A solid defenseman, a good team player, a mentor to the younger guys. Everyone liked him; even guys on other teams never had a bad thing to say about him.

Even though Paul didn’t have any kids, by nature of his age and his level of complaints about his joints he ended up being inducted into San Jose’s Old Guys Club all the same, and a function of being part of that club was that he was always around guys sharing stories about their kids.

Joe tried to tone it down for him, sure that it had to be pretty fucking boring to listen to people go on and on about trying to get newborns to sleep through the night and toilet training woes and she-says-she’s-never-ever-going-to-preschool-again. He knew he hadn’t been able to stand that sort of talk before he’d had kids of his own, after which it felt like that was  _all_  he wanted to talk about because, you know, his kids were awesome.

But he knew that everyone else wouldn’t share his sentiments, especially someone without kids, so when Paul was around, he would try to engage him in other topics, ask him about his interests in football or baseball, what kind of movies he liked. He may not have been captain anymore, but that was all part of just being a good teammate, a good friend.

Paul was unfailingly nice, a living example of the polite Minnesotan stereotype, though he hid a wicked sense of humor under all of that Midwestern courtesy. He was smart, too, one of those guys who got more than hockey experience out of their time in college. All in all, he was just a really good guy.

The only quirk, the only critique that anyone could have, and it wasn’t even something that Joe could really judge him for: he was remarkably tight-lipped about his personal life.

It wasn’t anybody else’s business, really, what Paul decided to do with himself off the ice. It was just a little odd, in the sort of dressing room where everyone was up in each other’s personal lives all the time. He said he wasn’t seeing anyone, but there were a few things he said that made Joe wonder, sometimes, if he had some girl tucked away somewhere that he didn’t want to introduce them to.

His house, for one, was confusing. It had four bedrooms, which was three bedrooms too many for a single guy without kids. Of course most people would have a spare room or two for guests, but that was a whole lot of house for one guy, and the land to match.

“I just like my privacy,” he’d said with a small smile when Burnzie started giving him shit for it.

Then there was the thing where sometimes he’d start to reference someone else, or unthinkingly refer to himself as being part of a group.

“My – I know someone who really loves that book.”

“When we went home to visit my parents over the summer…”

“Oh, man, I hate it when J- when my friend does that.”

More than a few guys had caught onto the trend, but after Paul stating that he was single (and wasn’t interested in a relationship, thank you very much, so please take all of your blind date suggestions with you when you go), nobody would press the matter with him.

No, because they were all horrible gossips, they just muttered about it amongst themselves.

Someone suggested that maybe he’d had a recent break-up over the summer, which was why he kept talking like he was in a relationship and then correcting himself. That one sounded possible; pretty much all of them had gone through that sucky post-break-up period where you had to reorient yourself to being single again. And besides, it wasn’t that unusual for relationships to end when a player moved to a new city and his girlfriend didn’t want to follow.

“Maybe keep girlfriend hidden in house,” Tomas had suggested, only to be summarily pelted with stick tape.

“Not totally impossible,” Burnzie had said. “Not that he has her like, locked up or something, but maybe he just wants to keep it a secret.”

That wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility, though it was a little odd. Some guys had relationships that they tried to keep quiet to keep the spotlight off of their girlfriends, to protect them from the media, but Paul Martin wasn’t exactly such a superstar player that he couldn’t have a girlfriend without her getting harassed all the time.

Joe himself had a pet theory, one that he kept to himself because he knew that even broaching it in front of the others would get him a few sharp looks from Tommy and a talk about respecting each other’s privacy.

But, well, Joe wouldn’t have been all that surprised if Paul Martin did turn out to have a secret relationship, but the secret of it was that it was with another man. It would have made sense: a wealthy, successful, not-unattractive hockey player in his thirties who was unattached and had never publicly dated? He’d fit the profile of a closeted gay athlete trying to keep his sexuality out of the press.

It wasn’t any of Joe’s business, really, even if he wanted to somehow let Paul know that they would accept him just the same no matter who he loved.

So he kept his suspicions to himself and let Paul express whatever he did or didn’t feel like sharing with the team.

For the most part, Paul kept mum about his personal life. But once in a while, he would say something that made Joe wonder if there wasn’t more going on there.

There weren’t a lot of childless guys who would be nodding along like a seasoned veteran of child-rearing when the dads all started talking about how hard it was to get kids to listen to you.

Or who would hear guys praying that their kids would stop being such picky eaters as they grew older and mutter darkly, “It never gets better.”

Then there was that time on the plane when Pavs was talking about trying to get the kids to sleep in their own beds at night and Paul had literally closed his book, sat it down on the table in front of him and leaned in with rapt attention to hear everyone’s advice.

“Can you lock them out of your room?” he’d asked. “Or is that unethical?”

And that one time where Burnzie’s kids were getting a little too enthusiastic in their roughhousing and Paul said, “I find that spraying them with water usually gets them to break things up.”

Burnzie had made a face and said, “Isn’t that what they say to do with cats?”

Paul had smiled with a faraway look in his eyes and said, “Oh, it works with all types.”

But the really strange one, the one that really made Joe wonder if all of the team’s weird theories might have some sort of truth in them, was when Paul had pulled him aside after practice one day and asked, “What do you do when your kids have separation anxiety? Like, when you have to go away on a road trip, how do you keep them from freaking out?”

Joe weighed the pros and cons of responding a couple of different ways, and settled by asking lightly, “Why, Paulie, you got some kids somewhere that we should know about?”

Paul frowned at that, his face going through a myriad of different emotions while a flush rose up his neck.

“What? No, of course not. I was just wondering – for a friend. His kids get really upset whenever they’re separated from him and he doesn’t know what to do with them.”

It sounded like a cover, but if Paul wasn’t up to telling him the truth yet, Joe wasn’t going to push. He’d let Paul tell him when he was ready.

“Well, it’s always hard leaving your family,” Joe said slowly. “And it breaks your fucking heart when your kids are upset because you’re gone. I think it helps to call them as much as you can, and Skype especially when they’re young, because it’s more meaningful for them to get to see you and not just hear you. Ask them about their day, just let them know that even though you’re gone, you’re still thinking about them, and you’re coming back. That’s the important part, making sure they understand that you’re coming back.

“We have a calendar on our fridge with all of our travel dates on it, and every day that I’m away my wife helps the kids cross off the date, so they know how long it’ll be before I’m home. Consistency is the big thing, when you come home exactly when you promised you’d come home, they trust more that you’re always going to come back, and they don’t get so upset.”

Paul was nodding along the whole time, a thoughtful expression on his face like he was really processing it all and taking it to heart.

“That might work,” he’d muttered under his breath.

Then, almost an afterthought, he met Joe’s eyes and said, “Thanks, Joe.”

Joe nodded.

“Of course, man. And, uh, let me know if you have any more problems, eh? I’m no expert, but between me and some of the other guys, we’ve got a few pointers for just about any problem.”

Paul had smirked then, almost to himself, and asked, “What do you know about teething?”

“Oh, brother.” Joe chuckled and clapped him on the shoulder, squeezing it firmly. “C'mon, we’ll get lunch and I’ll tell you all about teething.”

Maybe Paul did have a secret family hidden away in Pittsburgh or something, or maybe he really was just asking for a friend.

Either way, if there was one thing Joe Thornton was good at, it was talking about his kids.

And maybe, one day, Paul would be willing to talk about his, too.


	40. Cody/Enzo, not!fic I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not a proper story, but I am posting it here because it summarizes a story I will in all likelihood never write. Anonymous prompted: "So life sucks ass rn and I would be forever indebted if you shared some hurt/comfort wolf headcanons to ease this difficult time." I decided to respond by providing closure for the Cody/Enzo storyline, which was never resolved in fic. Therefore, for completion's sake, I'm archiving this with my other fics.
> 
> 12/30/17

In the mean time, we all know I tend to be better at the hurt part than the comfort, especially when it comes to wolves, so I was racking my brain today trying to think of any ideas that I have that come with a happy ending. I know most of you guys are here for the Nashville pack (now just Nealer’s pack in general, I guess), but one thing that was recently bouncing around my head was about Tyler Ennis and Cody Hodgson, both formerly of the Sabres pack, who were left in a shitty place and never got their happy ending.  

For anyone who doesn’t recall, because those fics were a long time ago, at the end of the 2014-15 season, Cody was bought out by Buffalo, and then signed with Nashville (this will show up in the third Nashville fic).  This was right after Stafford, Myers, and Enroth had all been traded, and the pack was falling apart.  Tyler and Cody made their own little pack of two after the trades, but after Cody left for Nashville he then essentially ghosted Tyler, leaving Tyler feeling like he’d been abandoned.  Even if there wasn’t a pack, he’d had Cody, who accepted him for who he was and wanted him as part of his pack, human or not, and now Cody wouldn’t even talk to him or answer his messages and Tyler had no idea why, so he was left to speculate, and most minds go to dark places when they start to speculate.

Tyler ended up (with Ryan Miller’s help) picking himself up and becoming a co-alpha to the pack along with Mike Weber, and then showed up in a few fluffy pack fics.  I stopped writing the Sabres pack after Weber left the team, for a few reasons. For one, nobody was really reading them anymore, and it didn’t seem worth the disappointment to keep writing something people clearly weren’t interested in.  For another, I myself was so miserable with the team letting go of all of my favorites (I was very attached to Enroth and Weber and still keep tabs on them) that I couldn’t see the point in trying to cobble the pack back together after every trade, especially when nobody was really interested in reading it anyway.

At the same time, Cody Hodgson played 39 games with the Preds where he scored eight points, and then spent the rest of the season in the AHL. He wasn’t re-signed after the 2015-16 season, and then announced the following October that he was retiring at the age of 26 and would be working with Nashville’s youth hockey program.  This was stunning news, because Cody was a 10th overall pick and a quickly-rising star when he came to Buffalo.  At one point he was the team’s top goal-scorer (not a huge feat for Buffalo, but he was still a respectable forward), and there was talk of him being the next captain - I am entirely serious, most of us expected that it was only a matter of time before Cody became our new captain, because he was going to be the face of the franchise (this was pre-Jack, keep in mind).

Cody’s rapid decline in scoring, resulting in an AHL demotion and ultimately retirement, was stunning.  He took a lot of negative press for it.  Nobody really knew what to make of it.  I certainly didn’t, and while I was sad for him, I figured it made addressing the situation from a wolf-perspective even more difficult, and without anyone reading, it wasn’t worth writing.

And so long backstory short, Cody and Tyler were left in a sort of fic-limbo where their estrangement was never explained and their story was left unfinished.

I’m not sure how well I could try to wrap that story up in fic-form - Cody will show up in the third Nashville fic, but from Nealer’s POV, which means we won’t get the full story there and we probably won’t hear much about Cody’s relationship with Tyler.  It would also still be hard with all of the changes in the pack, with Tyler and Marcus being traded to Minnesota (for Jason Pominville, the former alpha, of all people).  Unless people show some serious interest, I’m going to let those sleeping dogs lie.

But, it’s been on my mind, so when I read your message, I thought I could maybe tell you about them here.

For the IRL part: this past October Cody was [featured in an article](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sportsnet.ca%2Fhockey%2Fnhl%2Fretired-nhler-cody-hodgson-giving-back-game-loves%2F&t=NDdlNWE1YzlmNjNlYmFhNjY5ZDU0NjE4MTBiYjZiZDcwMjlhOTZlNyxVaWpvNmtsSA%3D%3D&b=t%3A9H_yMHZoXSJOQHEK1KjFQw&p=https%3A%2F%2Fswedishgoaliemafia.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F169137757769%2Fso-life-sucks-ass-rn-and-i-would-be-forever&m=1) that discussed why his career devolved and why he ultimately retired. He had suffered for a while from symptoms including fatigue and shortness of breath, blackouts, tremors, and an arrhythmia. He was ultimately found to have a genetic disorder that’s exacerbated by prolonged physical activity, i.e. professional hockey.  It was therefore in his best interest to retire when he did, and explained a lot of why he’d been struggling after he was on his way to being a star.

From a wolf standpoint, it would be a little more understandable why Cody might ghost Tyler.  Not excusable, maybe, but you could get why he might do it.  First he goes to a new team where the pack is jacked up (and unsure how they feel about him around their new human alpha) in a new horrible way (compared to how his old pack was jacked up).  He knows Tyler is upset, but at the same time he’s scared and embarrassed about his own life.  He knows his career is falling apart, he knows he needs to do better on the ice, but his body is doing some pretty terrifying shit to him and none of the tests can figure out what’s going on.  He doesn’t know how he can be there to support Tyler when he doesn’t know how to deal with his own problems. Getting sent down to the AHL is like a death knell.  He knows how far he’s fallen, and with the way things have been going, he’s got a sinking feeling that he’s never going to be able to make things better.

He won’t make it back to the NHL, and he won’t be anywhere near Tyler.  He won’t be  _good enough_  for Tyler. And so he decides to let Tyler go, as quietly as possible.  He’s ashamed, but it feels like at this point it would be for the best, after ghosting Tyler for so long.

Tyler doesn’t get over it.  He gets better, and he copes, and he focuses on his pack and he moves on, but he doesn’t get over it.  There’s no way he could.  He and Cody were…they never put a label on it, but they were something.  He knows that Cody must have cared, once.  Everyone says that Cody cared, so it wasn’t just in his head.  He thinks that he may have lov- well.  Tyler’s pretty sure he loved Cody.  He can’t put words in Cody’s mouth, but he’s spent enough time turning it over in his head that he feels like he could tentatively say that maybe Cody loved him back, too.

He knows that Cody was sent down, of course.  He got the news alert for it.  He didn’t message Cody then, because at that point Cody hadn’t spoken to him for half a season and he couldn’t imagine Cody wanted to hear Tyler commiserate with him anyway. Whatever happened with Cody, with them, Tyler realizes that he just might never get an answer, and he has to live with that.  It hurts, because he’s never cared for anyone the way he did Cody, but he’s dealing with it.  He’s still living his life.

And then Cody  _retires_ , he’s 26 and he’s retiring from hockey, and it feels like it can’t be real.  Going to the AHL is one thing, but it doesn’t mean he has to  _retire_.

Tyler tries calling him then, for the first time in over a year.  Cody doesn’t answer - honestly, Tyler didn’t expect him to. But it feels like the right thing to do, this time, to let him know that he’s sorry to hear he’s retiring, because that sucks, and the hockey world will be a sadder place without him, but that Tyler still believes in him, no matter what he wants to do, and that he’s always welcome to call Tyler whenever he wants, for anything.  Seriously, anything.

Cody doesn’t contact him.  Tyler isn’t really surprised, but it still stings all the same.

(Cody keeps that voicemail and listens to it an embarrassing number of times, when he feels aimless and miserable and shitty and thinks about all of those dreams that he was close enough to taste, to just barely brush with his fingertips, before they were cruelly ripped away from him forever by some fluke of biology that nobody had ever heard of before.  Tyler always did have a way of making things better, even if he didn’t know it.)

At this point Cody doesn’t think he has the right to talk to Tyler, to interrupt his life after all of this time, no matter what Tyler says.  And so he starts working with kids - human kids, but there’s not a huge difference between human kids and pups, really.  They’re all rough and messy and, in Cody’s experience, love to learn about hockey.  Cody might not be an NHL player anymore, and he might not really have a pack, but he can teach some kids/pups about hockey, and things are almost okay.

Tyler and Marcus getting traded to Minnesota - and for  _Jason_  of all people, the ultimate of ironies - is what finally gets Cody to rethink his plan of action.  He knows Tyler’s not going to be alone - he has Marcus, of course, and he’s human, so he doesn’t  _need_  to be with a pack if things aren’t so welcoming in Minnesota - but he knows how rough the trade has to be for him.  It would be bittersweet: he’d be getting a new chance with a team that actually regularly makes the playoffs, and with his best friend Jared there, to boot.  A fresh start might be just what he needed to really thrive.

But he would also be leaving his old pack, his old team and his old city and everything he’d been working so hard to build there for so long.  Trades suck, even when they work out well in the end.  And there wouldn’t be many places where Tyler could talk about all of his mixed feelings without sounding like an ungrateful jerk - he would either upset people in Buffalo by talking about how excited he was for his new start, or he’d sound like he didn’t appreciate his new chance in Minnesota by talking about what he was leaving behind in Buffalo.

Cody was neutral ground, at least in that he wasn’t tied to any of those cities (not anymore, at least).  And he knew how much it sucked to leave behind your dreams and goals after putting so much effort into them for so long. And most of all, once upon a time, Cody had known Tyler, maybe better than anyone else.  He hadn’t done right by Tyler in a long time, and that was his fault, he’d own that.  But now, after two years, now he was older, and he liked to think a little wiser - he’d spent a long time sorting through his own thoughts since announcing his retirement.  Cody wasn’t sure what he could be for Tyler now, what Tyler would let him be, but he hoped that he could be a source of support for him.

He hoped he could at least be a friend.

Cody could never express what a relief it was, to find that Tyler hadn’t changed his phone number.  That relief was short-lived, because Tyler actually answered his phone, the measured hesitance in his voice indicating that he still had Cody’s number in his contacts and that he knew exactly who was calling him.

“Hello?”

“Hi, it’s, uh, it’s Cody.  Hodgson.”

“I know who you are.”

“Yeah, um.  Of course you do.  Shit, I’m not - look, I just wanted to say…”

“…you wanted to  _say_ …”

“I’m sorry, I should have planned this better. I was thinking about your trade, and how you must be feeling, and I- shit, I’m so sorry.  That’s what I wanted to say.  For the trade, and for, for all of it.  For leaving you, and for ghosting you, and for being so absorbed in my own shit that I never considered how you were feeling, and then when I  _did_  consider it I just told myself it was too late to make things right, which was even worse of me, and I just - wait, you’re not going to add anything to that?”

“Like what?”

“I just thought…I don’t know, I kind of expected a lot more yelling.”

“No, you’re doing a pretty good job so far. Continue.”

“Oh.  Well, I, um.  I.  I’m just really sorry, okay?  I know that’s not enough, that’s nowhere near enough, and even if I grovel and apologize for the rest of my life it still might not be enough.  But I wanted you to know that I’ve been working on figuring out my own shit, and I think I’m finally getting to a better place.  And if you ever want to talk to someone about the trade, or about the pack - or if you don’t want to talk about either, and you want to talk about nothing, or if you just want to complain about random things that are on your mind, because I know you like to do that-”

“I  _do_  like to complain…”

“-well, whatever you want to do, I just want you to know that I’m here for you.  I’m here for that.  And if you don’t want to talk to me, that’s okay too.  I wouldn’t expect anything less, after how I’ve behaved.  But if you wanted to start over, or just - just work on where we were. Well.  I’m okay with that.  I’m okay with whatever you want.”

“Are you done yet?  Was that it?”

“Um…yes?”

“You’re sure?  Nothing more?”

“Was I supposed to add something?”

“No, just checking.  You sounded like you had a lot to get off your chest.”

“I…yeah, I guess I did.”

“Okay, cool.  Well, I’m not, like, happy with you, because what you did was shitty.  But I am very magnanimous, and I’m also hard-up for wolf-cuddles, because Jared’s too dumb to know how to do them right-”

“I thought Jared was human? And doesn’t know about wolves?”

“Oh, no, he totally doesn’t, but I feel like after I’ve been grooming him to be my off-season cuddle buddy for so long he should really be better at it than he is.  But  _no_ , he’s busy with his  _family_  and his  _kids_  and I’m left high and dry with nary a wolf in sight to cuddle.”

“So…”

“Hm?”

“So you’re saying…”

“Do I have to spell it out for you?  God, okay.  Get your ass on a flight to Edmonton - or a car, or a train, or like, a Greyhound bus - does it have to be a Wolfhound because you’re a wolf? Whatever, come to Edmonton, fucking cuddle me, and then we’ll talk about our shit, okay?”

“Wait, you can’t mean - just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“I just…God, yes, okay, of course.  I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Good.  Bring your repenting socks, because you’re gonna need them.

“…I’ll try.”

“And also your swimsuit, because I have a pool.”

“I’ll make a note of it.”

“And Cody?”

“Yeah, Ty?”

“I missed you too.”

“I didn’t say- but yeah, of course I missed you.”

“I know.”

And it was those two words, sounding so smug and so pleased and so painfully, wonderfully familiar, that told Cody that maybe he could fix this, that maybe it wasn’t too late after all.

Letting go of some dreams didn’t mean that you could never dream again, and right then, for the second time in his life, Cody’s dreams felt like they might be within his grasp.


	41. Cody/Enzo, not!fic II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompted: How long does the hug last when Cody shows up with his repenting socks and how mad is Tyler that Cody never told him he was struggling so badly before he retired?
> 
> 12/31/17

The first problem is that Cody doesn’t actually know what repenting socks are.  He tries texting his siblings and just gets a bunch of confused emojis in response.  He then considers asking one of his old Sabres packmates who would be knowledgeable about Tyler-isms, but decides against it thinking that they might just tell him to go fuck himself.  So he ends up bringing a whole variety of socks and even some new ones he got at the store, just in case.  Hopefully at least one pair will count as “repenting socks.”

It’s one thing for Tyler to tell him to come visit, but Cody still expects things to be awkward when he shows up.  There’s no way for it  _not_ to be awkward - they haven’t seen each other in two years, except for those two games that Cody played with Nashville against Buffalo (Cody scored a goal in one of them).  Even then they barely saw each other because Tyler was scratched due to injury.  Tyler tried to see him, hung around in the hall after the game in Buffalo, but Cody put considerable effort into avoiding him and Tyler must have realized that.  God, he must have been so hurt by that.  There’s no way that Cody can just show up and expect things to be easy.

Except when he gets off the plane in Edmonton, Tyler is actually there to meet him at arrivals.  He’s looking at his phone, and Cody just stops and takes in the sight of him.  Tyler looks - good, really good.  His hair’s short again, so his mom must have gotten at it, and he’s wearing shorts and a backwards snapback like a huge stereotype of a hockey player in the off-season and Cody loves him all the more for it.

Tyler’s head snaps up then, like he could somehow pick up on Cody’s thoughts, and Cody’s expecting him to close off, to get a little guarded.  It’s what he deserves, after all.  It’s what Cody would do, if their positions were reversed.

But that’s not what happens. Tyler sees him and his face just lights up, that big toothy smile that Cody’s only been able to catch over media videos for the past two years, and his eyes are just so  _happy_ , like he’s actually thrilled to see Cody there. 

Before Cody can even get a word in (probably the world’s most pathetically anxious “hello,”), Tyler’s arms are around him, bony and a little too tight and so achingly familiar.  He smells like ice and sunshine and that strange mix of hot sauce and ranch dressing that he was always putting on everything - in a word, he smells like home.  Cody’s afraid to move, afraid to even breathe, lest he somehow jostle Tyler into remembering that he’s supposed to hate Cody right now, and deservedly so.

But Tyler doesn’t let him stay still for long, suddenly gripping Cody even tighter, his chin digging into Cody’s shoulder as he says, “Did you forget how to hug without me there to remind you?  You’re supposed to put your arms around me too, dumbass.”

There really isn’t anything Cody can do but hug him back, maybe just this side of too tight but it makes Tyler hum happily in his arms, so he must be okay with it.

Cody can’t believe this turn of events.  It’s everything he’s dreamed of for years, ever since he realized that he didn’t know how to dig himself out of the hole that he’d dug and that he missed Tyler viscerally, like a missing limb.  They weren’t mates, sure - Tyler was human and it just wasn’t really done, though Neal’s situation had turned all of Cody’s expectations on their heads.  But they had been - something.  Not mates, but maybe not less than that.  Maybe just…different.

Everything was always different, with Tyler around.

And here they were, two years of silence due to Cody’s own fears and anxieties, and Tyler was still willing to hold onto him like not a moment had passed and they were back in Buffalo, back when the team had been miserable and the pack was going through an identity crisis once a month but Cody and Tyler were invincible together, them against the world, nothing that they couldn’t do as long as they had each other-

“Ah, fuck!”

Cody tried to pull back so he could rub at where Tyler had just pinched his side, but Tyler wouldn’t let him move from the coil of his arms.

“You’re a dumbass,” Tyler said, just a breath of space between them.  “Like, for real, you are so dumb, and I can’t believe you let yourself go through all that shit and wouldn’t let me be there for you.  What did you think your boyfriend was for?  You’re supposed to come to me with that shit!”

He slapped Cody upside the head, but Cody couldn’t even be that bothered when he was too busy staring into Tyler’s eyes, bright and green and fervent in the way he gets when he’s really serious about something, past his usual level of intensity that he applies to most things in his life.

“I’m sorry I-”

Another smack, lighter this time, really halfway between a shove and an excuse for Tyler to run his hand over Cody’s hair.

Cody couldn’t really mind, honestly, not when he was happily pinned by Tyler’s eyes.

“I  _missed_ you,” Tyler said, halfway between a plaintive whine and something softer, something heavy that made Cody’s heart clench in his chest.

“I’m sorry I was so stupid,” Cody said just as quietly. “I was stupid, and I should have trusted you to handle what was going on instead of trying to work through everything myself.”

“Yes you should have.” Tyler looked surprised that Cody had admitted his faults so readily, or perhaps he was just smug to be told he was right.

Either way, Cody wasn’t expecting Tyler to nestle in close again, clutching Cody to himself like he might try to disappear after going through all of the effort of flying to Edmonton just to see Tyler.

“You’re so stupid,” Tyler whispered, his breath fluttering against Cody’s ear.  “I can’t believe I love such a stupid person, how did you ever survive without me?”

Cody would have expected himself to freeze up in a moment like this, to tense in surprise at the very least at such a casual admission of all the things they’d flirted around admitting for so long.

But he didn’t tense up, and he didn’t try to pull away.  Instead, it felt only too natural to press a kiss to Tyler’s neck and murmur, “You know, I’ve been asking myself the same thing.”


	42. Sharks: #wolfboyfriends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompted: I really want SJS wolves trying to translate 'packmate' for Tomas, but they use google translate or some other shitty translation app and Tomas is just like "You want to be my...wolf boyfriend???"
> 
> This was following a discovery I had that if you try to translate "wolf friend" from English to Czech in Google Translate, and then take the Czech translation and translate it back from Czech to English, Google Translate will translate it as "wolf boyfriend."
> 
> Otherwise known as the fic that launched a thousand #wolfboyfriend jokes.
> 
> 1/5/18

_2013_

“So back in the Q, I had this packmate who-”

“What?” Tomas interrupted, getting that squinty look he always did when he was trying to puzzle his way through a word he didn’t understand.  He leaned in closer towards Jason on the hotel bed, which was kind of a feat, because he was already just a couple of inches from being in Jason’s lap.

Tomas had turned out to be just as cuddly as his personality would suggest. Jason didn’t really mind, because he was always up for showing some physical affection for his teammates.

Logan thought that this was fantastic, because it allowed him to roll off to one side of the bed on his own, grumbling, “Awesome, you two deserve each other. Maybe now I can actually sleep without feeling like I’m being strangled by a furnace.”

(Jason and Tomas then took great joys in flopping on top of him and bodily hauling him back into the center of the bed.)

Now, Jason thought back over his last words and tried to consider what might have tripped Tomas up.

“Packmate?”

At Tomas’s nod, Jason said, “That’s like, the other wolves in your pack.  That’s me and Logan.”

He pointedly dug his elbow into Logan’s side, just to get him to curse into his pillow and try to squirm away across the bed.

Without even looking Jason stuck out a hand, grabbed Logan by the collar of his shirt, and hauled him right back to where he’d been before, his back pressed warmly along Jason’s leg.  Logan started grumbling again, but Jason placated him by running a hand through his hair; Logan was always easy for someone petting him, no matter what form he was in.

“I don’t…” Tomas trailed off, still looking frustrated.

“It’s like a teammate, but for your pack.  You know, you’re on a team with your teammates, and you’re in a pack with your packmates.”

Tomas made a face and shifted around a little uncomfortably, like he not only wasn’t sure if he knew how to express what he wanted to say but also really didn’t feel comfortable saying it at all.

“But… _mates_? I know what is ‘mate,’ but pack, pack _mates_  means we…we are…”

Now he looked a cross between disgusted and horrified, like a little kid who just saw their parents kissing, and Jason tried very valiantly to turn his laugh into a cough.  The poor kid was uncomfortable enough without being laughed at.

“Oh God, no, not that kind of mate.  ‘Mate’ is the word for like your husband or wife, but for wolves only.  But this version of mate when you say packmate or teammate is like the whole British thing where they call each other ‘mate’ instead of ‘friend.’ Even the humans do that there.  So, your teammate is like your team-friend, and your packmate is like your pack-friend.”

Tomas was giving him that look like he thought English was a ridiculous hell language and he couldn’t believe he was expected to understand it.  Jason was getting pretty used to receiving that look.

“Czech is better,” Tomas muttered and shook his head in disappointment, even though he clearly expected Jason to hear him given how he was already starting to smile.

Jason rolled his eyes and grabbed the back of Tomas’s neck, shaking him lightly and startling a laugh out of him.  It jostled Logan, who whined in complaint again, but he quieted down pretty quickly when both Jason and Tomas leaned over to pet him.

“What do you call the people in your pack, then?” Jason asked Tomas.

Tomas screwed up his face in thought again.

“Family?  In Czech, don’t have big, big packs like America.  Pack is family, not hockey team.”

At that, Logan’s head shot up, his hair looking absolutely awful after Jason running his hand through it and made even more ridiculous by his disoriented, disbelieving squint.

“This is your first team pack?”

When Tomas made a face at him, he clarified, “This is your first time having a wolf pack on your hockey team?”

Tomas nodded, and Logan’s eyebrows shot up to land somewhere near his hairline.

“Wow.  Sorry about that, bro, you kind of drew the short straw there with the two of us.”

Jason nodded in commiseration.  They weren’t a  _bad_  pack to have, but for someone’s first ever experience with a team pack, getting an alpha-less pack of two wasn’t exactly hitting the jackpot.  This was especially unfortunate seeing as Tomas still technically qualified as a cub who probably needed like, structure and support and competent alpha leadership and shit, instead of two fail-adults whose claim to fame was that they were “trying their best.”

“We don’t have an alpha, but at least we have a bunch of human dads?” he hedged. “Like, if you add up Patty and Jumbo and Pavs and then you combine them with Boyler’s sense of humor and Burnzie’s aesthetic, you pretty much have an alpha wolf dad.”

Logan canted his head to the side, and if he’d been in wolf form, his ears would have been perked up.

“You know,” he said slowly, “That actually makes a lot of sense.”

“I like pack,” Tomas said, drawing their attention back to him.  “This is good pack.”

“Aww.” Jason patted him on the cheek with intentional condescension, but Tomas leaned into it with a grin all the same.  He might be even easier for petting than Logan. “Thanks, kiddo.  We like it too.”

Logan was back to trying to bury his face in his pillow, but he reached out a blind hand and patted at Tomas’s leg.

“You still never told us how you say ‘packmate’ in Czech,” he told his pillow.

Tomas frowned again.

“There is no word, ‘cause pack only family, you know? Pack and family, same thing.”

“Well there should be a word,” Jason said. “We need to find you a word.  Hold on.”

He reached for his phone, buried somewhere in the sheets, and opened up the Google Translate app.  It was already set to Czech, after all of the use it had been getting lately.

He typed in “wolf friend” into the English side, and then held up the Czech translation for Tomas to read.

“Here, this is how we’re going to say packmate in Czech then.”

Tomas squinted at the screen, and then his face went startlingly red.

“You want to be…wolf boyfriend?” he spluttered.

Jason frowned and said, “No, what the fuck?” just as Logan, face still buried in his pillow, waved a blind hand in the air and said, “ _Yes_ , that is exactly what he wants.”

(Jason didn’t feel any guilt for flicking him on the ear.)

“ _No_ , it says ‘wolf friend,’ look!” He waved the phone in Logan’s direction, even though they both knew that Logan wouldn’t look at it.

Tomas started to giggle, high and ridiculous and way too infectious. “Not what word means!”

“Yes it does!  The app says so!  Look!”

He copied the Czech translation,  _vlčí přítel_ , and then set the app to translate from Czech to English.  He then input the Czech phrase, and the English results said…

“ _Wolf boyfriend_ , what the fuck?”

Tomas was outright laughing now, and Logan didn’t even swat at him to get him to shut up because his own shoulders were shaking as he muffled his chuckles in his pillow.

“You pretty, but not that pretty,” Tomas said, giving Jason an overly conciliatory pat on the shoulder.

“It’s the translator!  You saw it, I told it to say ‘wolf friend,’ why does it want to say boyfriend?”

“Is true though,” Tomas said, getting a concerning glint in his eyes. “You are boy and friend, so boyfriend!”

“Yeah, no-”

Tomas just steamrolled over him.

“You can both be my wolf boyfriends,” he said with way too much patronization for someone so young.  He patted Jason on the shoulder again, and Logan on the ass with his other hand.

It was, probably, the most condescending ass-pat that Jason had ever witnessed.  But Logan didn’t seem to mind, given how he was too busy almost choking on his laughter, shoulders shaking helplessly as he laughed into his pillow.

“ _Yes_ ,” he said. “That’s it, we don’t say packmates anymore. In San Jose we say ‘wolf boyfriends.’”

Jason started to argue, but then stopped himself. That was actually pretty awesome. And it would be really, really fucking hilarious to say that in front of wolves from other teams.

“You know what, fuck it, I actually like it.  Okay, from now on, by unanimous pack decision, all wolves on the San Jose Sharks are wolf boyfriends.”

It was probably the best decision they’d ever made as a pack.

~~~

_2015_

Tomas bounced on his heels as his new packmates –  _new packmates, plural, he had four new packmates!_  – filed into Logan’s house after the first day of training camp, each looking more uncomfortable than the next.

“Welcome to Sharks!” he said, throwing his hands in the air. “I so excited to have so many new wolf boyfriends!”

Jones made a sound like he’d choked on his own tongue, Dell actually tripped into a wall, Meier turned red and looked like he was going to pass out, and Martin, Martin just closed his eyes, put a hand to his head, and said, “Oh, fuck, not another one.”

Melker stood off to the side, red-faced and groaning quietly in embarrassment like he hadn’t already spent half a season receiving the exact same treatment.

Logan didn’t actually die from laughter, but he did end up on the floor, red-faced and laughing so hard it physically hurt and he struggled to breathe.

Then Tomas, the little shit, shouted, “Oh, no, wolf boyfriend, I help you!” and he was just fucking  _gone_.

(The best part was that Logan had set up his phone to film the whole thing, having an idea of what Tomas was going to do, so when he sent the video to Jason that night when they Skyped, he got to relive the whole thing all over again.

(Jason wheezed like he was dying and laughed so hard he nearly fell off his bed. It was perhaps even better than the first time.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original end note: To my (very limited) knowledge the Czech word for friend, přítel, functions much in the same way as the Russian word друг, in that it can mean both a male friend and a boyfriend, and you determine the meaning based on context. Tomas, when reading the phrase “vlčí přítel,” would in all likelihood understand that it meant friend and not boyfriend, but for the sake of this fic we’re going to all put on our belief suspenders because I find this to be hilarious and I wish that I’d made Wolf Boyfriends their team tag.


	43. Sharks: Thornton POV, #wolfboyfriends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompted: all the new wolves come in like "hrm not sure where i fit or how this will work" and Tomas is just like "wow! friends! I'll help you! Lemme show you all my favorite places to eat!"
> 
> Once again Joe Thornton's POV, taking place after the dadfic that he also narrated, early in the 2015-16 season.
> 
> 1/7/18

Tomas was a pretty friendly guy in general, so it wasn’t too surprising that he’d warm to his new teammates pretty quickly.

But the way he’d attracted one particular group of new players – a group of guys who had probably never met each other before and a good portion of whom would probably be playing in the minors this season anyway so it was a little weird to get attached to them so readily – well, it was strange even for him.

Tomas was close with everyone on the team, because he was just that sort of guy. He and Tommy were pretty close both on and off the ice, and on the road he roomed with Matt and they spent a lot of their time playing videogames and wasting money at Dave and Buster’s.

He’d also gotten close with Logan and Jason the moment he walked onto the team. That was the strange part. Those two had always been friends, but they’d welcomed Tomas like some foreign triplet they’d only just now realized they had.

Things hadn’t gotten really weird until Tomas turned down a dinner invitation from Tommy one day after practice, saying he already had plans with Logan and Jason.

“Oh, I see how it is,” Tommy teased, “Replacing me with Cooch and Daddy already?”

Tomas had just smiled.

“Well, they wolf boyfriends, so.”

He shrugged.

The reactions from the room had been interesting. Joe himself had just barely avoided choking on his water; Pavs wasn’t so lucky, and Joe gave him a few healthy slaps on his back to get him breathing properly again. Patty’s eyebrows somehow migrated even closer to his hairline, Brauny said, “I’m sorry, what was that?”, and Burnzie just started cackling madly.

Boyler actually raised his hand like the fucking dork he was at heart and said, “Can I please ask what a wolf boyfriend is? Thanks.”

Cooch was turning a fairly interesting shade of red, and even Tomas looked embarrassed and like he might start backpedaling, but then Jason stepped in, big, charming media smile already plastered on his face, and slung an arm over each of their shoulders.

“It means that we’re wolf boyfriends,” he said serenely, enunciating each word like they were hard of hearing.

“No, we heard the first time,” Joe said, “That still doesn’t explain what the fuck it is.”

Jason cocked his head to the side.

“Do wolf boyfriends need an explanation?” he asked, in a tone that he probably thought sounded deep and meaningful.

“Yes,” chorused half of the dressing room.

“Well too fucking bad, you’re not in our club,” Logan grumbled, apparently finally getting past his initial embarrassment.

Jason nodded solemnly. “We’re very exclusive.”

He then dragged Logan and Tomas from the room before the questioning could continue.

Tomas looked fucking  _tickled_.

They never were able to get a definition of “wolf boyfriends” out of them, no matter how much pestering they did. The trio spent time together in each other’s hotel room and at each other’s places and they were always hanging out, but they wouldn’t give any more explanation than, “wolf boyfriends, very private, sorry you’re not invited.”

After a while everyone accepted it as one of those fucking weird quirks of being a hockey player. If it wasn’t hurting anyone, sometimes you had to pick your battles when trying to understand your teammates.

Honestly, it was only like, the sixth weirdest thing that Joe had ever seen in his hockey career. Seventh if you included that one thing in juniors with the brine shrimp.

So Joe did what everyone else did when their teammates did something really fucking weird, and he shrugged and got over it.

At least it was better than the time that Nemo had started collecting up balls of gross old stick tape and keeping them in his stall, “for luck.”

Joe wasn’t surprised when Cooch mourned Jason leaving the team; he seemed to have no luck, what with his friends always getting traded away. The whole team felt that loss, even if they loved having Dilly, and so it wasn’t too weird for Tomas to be sad about the trade too, especially after their weird little wolf boyfriend thing.

The whole thing where they adopted Melker Karlsson a month later on his first day in the NHL – that was a little weird.

“What, are you a wolf boyfriend too?” Joe had teased him after he’d spent a week glued to Logan and Tomas’s sides.

He wasn’t expecting Karlsson to turn so pale, or for his eyes to get so big or for him to look like he was about to pass out.

“You – you know?” Karlsson breathed, the words coming out as a choked gasp.

Joe made a face.

“The wolf boyfriend thing? The whole team knows about that.”

Karlsson wheezed like a dying fish; Joe patted him on the shoulder.

“Hey, man, it’s a stupid nickname, but if they want you in their little club or whatever, more power to you.”

“Club?”

Now Karlsson was frowning.

“Hey, what’s up?”

Cooch was entirely unsubtle as he slid in next to Karlsson. He didn’t have half as much charm as Jason had when he did the same thing, so it was really obvious that he was trying to interrupt whatever it was that had set Karlsson off. Joe would have chirped him for it, but let it go because at least it was looking out for the rookie.

Karlsson looked at Logan with a level of terror usually deserved for facing down a Shea Weber slap shot.

“He says they know about, about the wolf boyfriends,” he wheezed.

Logan made a show of rolling his eyes (then again, when did he not?) and casually brought up a hand to squeeze the back of Karlsson’s neck, like he thought that somehow Joe wouldn’t fucking notice that.

“Of course he does. Everyone knows about our  _secret club_.”

And there was absolutely nothing secretive about the emphasis he put on that.

Karlsson’s eyes flicked between Logan and Joe.

“If it’s secret, why do they know?”

“ _Because_ , they don’t know what we do in oursecret club. Because it’s  _secret_.”

Logan squeezed Karlsson’s neck again, and Joe couldn’t tell if it was in warning or something else.

Karlsson didn’t seem to actually mind it, for what that was worth. Actually, he looked like he was finally starting to breathe normally again.

“Oh. Oh! Yes, the secret club. Very secret.”

He nodded in Joe’s direction, like this whole strange exercise had been for Joe’s benefit all along.

“You guys are still weird,” Joe told them.

Logan made a face.

“You’re just fucking jealous.”

That one set off the rest of the boys, all arguing very loudly about how they so  _weren’t_  jealous of whatever their  _secret club_  was but also they should totally be invited to join and here are the reasons why.

(“Wolves are like dogs,” Pickles said. “You know I love dogs.”

(“I love boyfriends,” Tommy had countered.

(“I don’t think that’s what you meant to say…”

(“I know what I said.”)

So Melker Karlsson, for reasons that nobody was ever able to understand, was automatically received into the “wolf boyfriends” secret club. They could all shrug that off as just another weird thing about Cooch and Tomas, who were already pretty weird in their own right.

But somehow dragging  _four_  of the new guys into their weird little club on day one of training camp – including not only Paul Martin, their new top defenseman, but also _two_  goaltenders (one of whom was set to be their new starter) and the new first-round draft pick?

That was just too weird, even for the wolf boyfriends.

Joe wouldn’t want to do a disservice to his teammates by letting them think they could get away with this without anyone making a comment, so on the second day of camp, when the weird little group of seven all just happened to show up at the same time, he called out, “Wow, Cooch, you sure have got yourself a lot of wolf boyfriends!”

Cooch, who was way too used to Joe’s antics by now and had grown complacent, only flipped him off on his way to his stall. He didn’t even bother to look up from his phone, the little shit.

Tomas looked fucking delighted as he bounced over to Joe and said, “Yes, we have best wolf boyfriends, you see?”

There was a loud crash followed by a series of curses as Dell, a goalie who’d spent most of last year in the AHL and looked set to do so again, tripped over the edge of a stall and went crashing into it. Jones, after pausing for a split second, went over to help him up.

Melker had almost gotten over his mortification whenever the phrase “wolf boyfriends” was brought up in front of him, but it had somehow turned into these little nervous, red-faced giggles instead. He looked even more ridiculous next to the new kid, Meier, who acted as if he hadn’t even heard what was being said.

Martin, Martin was the interesting one. He stopped right where he was and turned to stare at Joe with narrowed eyes, like Joe was an opposing team’s set play that he was trying to pick apart and defend against, something to be analyzed and scrutinized but never trusted.

His head fell to the side a little bit, and Joe wouldn’t have noticed anything out of the ordinary if he wasn’t struck by the thought that he’d seen Jason do the same thing so many times before, his head turning ever so slightly to the side when he was trying to assess a situation, like a dog perking their ear up to hear better.

Whatever it was that Martin was searching for, he must have found it, or was at least satisfied with what he saw, because he glanced at Logan, who was already at his own stall with his back to them, and relaxed.

Weird as fuck, all of them.

Joe shook his head, clapped Melker firmly on the shoulder in the hopes that it would shock his system and keep him from hyperventilating, and told Tomas, “Yeah, I can see. You’re dating a whole bunch of beauties, aren’t you?”

Tomas beamed bright enough to put the sun to shame, and Dell somehow ended up tripping over his own feet and landing face-down on the floor, right next to the logo.

Eh. At least he didn’t land on it.

That pretty much set the tone for the rest of training camp.

Well, that and Tomas’s weird new attempts at playing tour guide. It was either that, or he thought he was going to act as a wizened veteran to a group of guys who were, for the most part, at least a few years older than him (all with the exception of Meier, who was technically younger, but seemed like he should be the one babysitting Tomas instead of the reverse).

“C'mon Paulie, we go to  _best_ restaurant!” Tomas was saying one day after training had concluded. He grabbed onto Paul’s arm, tugging at him impatiently.

Paul wore the long-suffering look of someone who could guess entirely well what kind of restaurant a guy like Tomas would want to go to, and had visions of hell when trying to imagine it.

“I think I’d really rather just take a nap-”

Tomas scoffed and pulled on his arm again; Paul remained unmoved.

“Don’t be old man, Paulie, we all go! Look, Joner coming!”

Jones’s head popped through the collar of the shirt he’d been putting on and he peered at them all with wide eyes.

“I’m sorry, what?”

Tomas threw him a winning smile and cheered, “I take wolf boyfriends to favorite restaurant!”

Logan grimaced. “Okay, I know what this is, and actually I’d rather not-”

“Dude, we  _all_  know what this is,” Tommy chirped, shaking his head with a smirk. “He only likes the one restaurant.”

Paul was watching them all with a growing frown. Joe took pity on him and clapped him on the shoulder that wasn’t being held captive by Tomas, leaning in close to say, “He thinks that Dave and Buster’s is the best restaurant ever created.”

The way that Paul’s eyes shot open wide would have been hilarious if Joe didn’t understand exactly where he was coming from and feel at least a modicum of sympathy. Arcade restaurants stopped being fun sometime before you turned thirty or after you had kids, whichever one came first. After how hard Coach had worked them all on their first day on the ice, the thought of going to some place that loud and obnoxious was like a waking nightmare, and he had to imagine that Paul felt similarly.

“Um, Tomas,” Paul said slowly, looking at the kid’s hand on his arm the way that one might watch a rattlesnake that was a bit too close for comfort. Or, y'know, a Shark. “I think I might, uh, already have plans-”

“What?”

Okay, Tomas looked way too upset about that one for a guy he’d just met.

But Patty was a fucking saint who looked out for his teammates, because he sidled up next to Joe and Paul and said, “Sorry, we actually invited Paul here out already.”

“Secret old man meeting,” Pavs agreed as he pulled no his shorts. “Sorry, you wouldn’t know about that sort of thing. It’s need-to-know.”

Then he called across the room, “Hey Wardo, secret old man meeting, you in?”

He got a thumbs up in reply.

Tomas still looked scandalized.

“But, Paulie!” He tugged weakly on Paul’s arm. “Wolf boyfriends!”

Paul sighed, looking a little guilty, and patted Tomas’s arm.

“We’ll, uh, we’ll do wolf boyfriends another time, buddy. Okay?”

The nod he got in return was ten different kinds of miserable.

Paul grimaced.

“Hey, it’s alright. You still have everyone else going with you! Look, Joner’s going!”

“Joner’s what?” Jones asked. “You know, I think I might actually also have plans-”

Logan patted him on the shoulder a little too firmly.

“Nope, if I’m going, you have to go. You too, Deller.”

Dell, for his part, actually looked kind of excited.

After a significant amount of pouting, and extracting copious assurances from Paul that they’d “do wolf boyfriends tomorrow, I promise,” Tomas finally filed out of the room with his cadre of wolf boyfriends.

Paul turned to Joe and sighed.

“I don’t know how to thank you all for that.”

“You could tell us what the fuck a wolf boyfriend is supposed to be.”

Pavs nodded. “Inquiring minds want to know.”

But Paul just shook his head and rubbed at his eyes.

“You know what, I have no fucking idea.”

He glanced back at the door out of which the others had just exited.

“But I think I’m going to find out.”


	44. Sharks/Predators: Paulie's Sunshiney New Pack vs. The #trashpack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompted: Paulie mentions he has to do something for Tomas and Nealer's just like "why?" and Paulie has to come up with an explanation that isn't 'when he asks me things politely I'm physically incapable of saying no'. But like at least Paulie will enjoy having an extremely well-trained and polite pack instead of Nealer's herd of demanding and messy (but lovable) puppies
> 
> Takes place early in the 2015-16 season.
> 
> 1/11/18

Paul was starting to think that perhaps he had spent so long in the vicinity of James’s pack that he’d forgotten what a normal pack was supposed to be like. And that was a pretty sad state of affairs, seeing as he’d only known since April that James even  _had_  a pack, and he’d only just met them in person for the first time in August.

But he felt like he’d spent so much time reflecting upon the  _idea_  of them – first after he made up with James and was acclimating himself to the idea of his all-too-human mate being the alpha of a back of werewolves, and later after actually having met them and having been absorbed into their pack almost instantly – that he felt like he’d known them for much longer than that. He felt like he’d been apart of them for much longer than that.

It was probably, he told himself, just because he’d spent the past season alone in Pittsburgh without a pack to call his own, what with James down in Nashville and his family back in Minnesota. He’d spent too long without a pack, and he’d latched onto the first one offered to him. It would make sense, to be a part of James’s pack: after all, mates were usually in the same pack.

And it wasn’t the Nashville pack’s fault, that they were a little…left of center when it came to what constituted as “normal” pack behavior. They had gone through years of damage under an alpha who actively disliked them and made his opinions on the pack clearly known, and now they’d just been adopted by a human alpha who was – and Paul knew this very intimately – making it all up as he went along.

It would make sense that the pack was maybe a little clingier than usual, maybe had more problems with maintaining boundaries when finally faced with an alpha who let them take as much as they needed from him, who willingly gave them attention and affection and whatever they could want. James was a little too indulgent of them, a little too willing to let his pack make the rules. He wasn’t firm with them because for the most part he really saw no reason to be, and so he generally gave them free reign over his house and his bed and his life.

A more traditional alpha would lose their head over the way that James let his pack treat him, regarding his orders more as suggestions and showing up at his house and in his bed at all weird hours of the day and night without an explicit invitation and making general nuisances of themselves just because they knew it would make James whine and roll his eyes. A more traditional alpha would have forced their pack into compliance, or else.

But Nashville did not have a traditional pack. To be fair, most teams didn’t anymore. Paul wasn’t personally familiar with the dynamics of most packs in the NHL, but he didn’t know of any alphas other than Lundqvist who prescribed to the benevolent dictatorship style of pack leadership. Most alphas tried to be more approachable, more relaxed, more open to input and suggestion from their packmates. Some were more outright paternal than others (Paul had to give Lundqvist his credit there, he had the paternal part down maybe a little too well), but in general, alphas tried to exude leadership but also caring.

James could do that, in his own, special James-way. Not that Paul had ever questioned his ability to care for his teammates – this had all started because James perhaps cared too much – but it had been a pleasant surprise to learn this new side of James, the side that could actually be an alpha. James was fumbling along, but he was making it work, and the way that his pack had flourished in the past year was testament to that. Paul couldn’t have been prouder of him for that, and to in even some small way get to be a part of that.

But it had to be acknowledged that James’s pack was not what one might call a “normal” pack, and so coming to San Jose, Paul experienced a bit of culture shock.

The team itself was great – the pack was too, of course, but it was nice to walk into a dressing room and find himself so easily accepted into the fold. He knew some of the guys already – he’d played on Team USA with Pavelski at the Olympics, after all – but it was still nice to be able to make friends so quickly.

(There was something that bonded hockey players together, when they were over thirty and their knees cracked when they got up in the morning and they looked across the locker room to see the bright, energetic faces of the young teammates who would replace them.)

Paul didn’t walk in with any real expectations for the pack. Having never played on a Western Conference team before, he wasn’t overly familiar with the Sharks or what wolves may or may not have played on the team. He had an idea that there had been some wolves, the last time he’d played against the Sharks, but whoever they were, they weren’t overly obvious about it and Paul hadn’t been bothered enough to try sleuthing it out.

(He knew it wasn’t Burns though. He’d been so sure it had to be – if anyone on that team looked like a wolf, it was Burns – but after having been flattened into the boards by the man a few years ago, smothered in his scent and a whole lot of bruises, Paul could attest that Brent Burns was very much a human.)

He was pretty sure that Jones was a wolf. He already knew about the other wolves on the Kings: Paul had seen firsthand how weird Brown and Quick could be about other wolves, how they spent their time at the Olympics meeting up with Kopitar whenever they could (but not Carter, strangely enough) and sending distrustful looks at the other wolves on Team USA (there were no less than ten wolves on that team; it had made for some weird attempts at pack bonding). It didn’t take a genius to see the way that the Kings pack acted around Jones even on the ice and add it to the scent of a new wolf in the air and put two and two together.

So Paul knew that he probably wouldn’t be the only new wolf in San Jose. There were a lot of unknown variables there, but he went to San Jose hoping that he’d have at least one new packmate who was in the same position as him, an outsider new to the team, in case the current pack turned out to be more insular than he was hoping.

He shouldn’t have worried. Not only did he walk into a new pack of six other wolves (at least two of whom probably wouldn’t spend the year in San Jose, but pack all the same), but he received probably the biggest welcome wagon of his entire career in the form of Tomas Hertl, declaring that the new pack members were all his “wolf boyfriends.”

After that remark, Paul had gotten the distinct feeling that his new pack was probably going to turn out a lot like James’s.

As time went on though, and the season got started (meaning Timo went back to his team in the Q and Deller went to the AHL), he realized that no, most of the crazy antics really were just limited to Tomas.

Tomas reminded Paul of James’s pack, probably because he’d fit in perfectly there. He put on a lot of the same shit-disturbing behaviors that Goose or Carter might, but at least they were somewhat more age-appropriate, and he did them all with Calle’s genuine sincerity and Maz’s cheerful aplomb. It was impossible not to like Tomas, no matter what he did or said, because he was such a sweet, happy kid who really did have that much fun playing hockey in the NHL.

(Some days, Paul felt old just looking at him.)

Aside from Tomas, though, the San Jose pack was startlingly… _normal_.

They didn’t have an alpha, but the pack was generally sedate enough that they didn’t really need one. It would have been nice, to be sure, especially for the younger guys, but nobody was going through any sort of intense emotional turmoil, and nobody was so unruly that they needed to be put in their place. Whatever problems they faced, as individuals or as a group, they were generally able to solve it by putting their heads together and supporting each other.

Everything was so strangely calm. Paul had forgotten what it was like to have packmates who didn’t try to show up in your bed uninvited (or ones who at least asked permission before coming over and doing so). They still ended up piled up in the same hotel room for away games, like most any other pack, but everyone was respectful of each other’s boundaries (with the exception of Tomas, of course, but he was honestly endearing about it).

Martin was exceedingly calm, to the point where sometimes Logan liked to sit Tomas down next to him, just to watch them interact. (He could also sleep through just about anything, which made for a pretty hilarious video of a lanky brown wolf curled up in the middle of a bed while an excessively fluffy grey adolescent climbed all over him, pouncing and playing, and never once waking him up.)

Logan himself was probably the closest thing the pack had to an alpha, and Paul thought he wouldn’t have been half bad at it, if push came to shove. He’d said that to Logan once and only once: Logan had snorted, flicked his eyes over Paul and said, “You know, I could say the same about you.”

Paul had felt himself turning red and ducked his head, deciding to let that train of conversation end in grace.

(He’d heard Logan murmuring almost wistfully, “That was more Jason’s thing, I think,” under his breath, but wisely pretended he somehow didn’t hear it.)

Melker was a good foil to Tomas, quick to smile and ready to try anything, but far more placid – as long as he was off the ice, that was.

And Tomas, Tomas was a force of nature unto himself, sunshine and laughter and killer hockey, all wrapped up in a smile and a hug. He was always excited to spend time with the pack, as humans or wolves, just to be around his “wolf boyfriends” (and boy, was that something Paul had no intention of bringing up to James).

But having one Tomas was still nothing compared to having a pack of them, and Tomas was pretty easy to wrangle, once you knew how (mostly cuddles and stuffed toys, Paul had found – Tomas loved stuffed toys no matter what form he was in).

Paul almost felt guilty thinking it, but it was… _nice_ , having a pack of grown adults who  _didn’t_  wake him up every morning on his day off by climbing on top of him and licking his face because James had talked up his legendary breakfast skills a bit too much. It was a pleasant change to be able to actually have his own home to himself, to have a quiet evening in actually  _be_  quiet.

He had a bed that nobody had ever tried to eat any form of food in, let alone left crumbs in or stained the sheets of, and it all felt a little too good to be true, a little  _too_  perfect.

(Eventually, he realized that this was because he hadn’t had a bed like that since he was single, back in that horrible limbo where James had moved out to his own place across the street and Paul found himself in a house that was too quiet and too clean. After that, having a perfectly sterile house didn’t feel quiet as nice anymore.)

Paul told himself that it was because he was used to looking after his packmates after dealing with James’s pack, that it was because he was by far the oldest guy in the pack and the others could use a bit of guidance, that he ended up caving nearly immediately to whatever it was that his new packmates wanted to do. It wasn’t at all because after a while his new house started to feel too big and too empty without anyone else there to fill it.

And it absolutely wasn’t because Paul couldn’t say no to a smiling Tomas Hertl.

It was just that…okay, it was at least  _partially_ that.

There were some things that Paul could say no to, and quite easily. For example, he was able to weasel his way out of going to any and all arcade restaurants, with the help of his teammates. And no matter how much Tomas smiled, there was no way that he was getting Paul to try eating dog food with him to “see if really taste like steaks, Paulie!” (Joner was concerningly intrigued by that one, and Paul was more than willing to leave them to it.)

But when Tomas came up to him with a smile and clasped his hands in front of him as if to keep himself from bouncing up and down and said, “Paulie, everyone very busy after practice, but if you not, we can play dragging ropes, please?”

Logan said that he and Jason had learned early on that the exact translation of the Czech phrase for “tug of war” was “dragging rope,” because that was Tomas’s favorite game and most frequent request. He loved it so much that he never traveled without at least two rope toys in his bags, in the event that one of them somehow frayed and couldn’t be salvaged. He didn’t care if his partner was a human or wolf; regardless, he would inevitably want to keep playing until they got sick of it and called it quits.

Agreeing to play tug of war with Tomas was a full-afternoon commitment, and it usually ended up blending into dinner plans. Because of how time-consuming it was, seeing as Tomas could keep playing for hours and never get bored, his packmates weren’t always very keen on playing with him.

Added that Paul had a Skype-date scheduled with James for that afternoon, he really should have just said no.

But when he was faced with an eager Tomas, his face bright with hope and doing his damnedest to be on his best behavior and ask as politely as possible because he knew that his packmates tended to see his favorite activity as an imposition…and he really did look just _so_  sweet when he got like that and he definitely knew it…

Well. It seemed like Paul was becoming a sucker for big puppy eyes, which was something else for which he was entirely willing to blame James and his pack.

That also meant, however, that he would have to cancel, or at least postpone his Skype-date with James, but when he told Tomas, “Yeah, okay,” and got hugged nearly within an inch of his life, it seemed worth it.

James sent him a sad-eyes emoji when Paul told him he was going to have to push back their call. When Paul felt guilty and started to waffle about it, James sent him an eye-roll emoji, followed by the words,  _im rollin my eyes @ u_ , in case it wasn’t clear.

 _Are you sure it’s really okay?_  Paul asked.

James responded with five eye-roll emojis.

_omg stop it just go be rugged+mysterious or w/e n call me later k?_

_Rugged and mysterious?_

_stop fishin 4 compliments_ , James sent, followed by three different types of fish emojis.

God, but Paul loved that man.

It was all worth it though. Paul invited Tomas over to his house, because he actually had land to run around on (and run, and run), and Tomas nearly jumped out of his skin and into his fur when he saw the size of the property.

(As it was, there was a line of hastily-dropped clothing leading from Paul’s back door, across his deck, and into his yard.)

Paul had planned to remain on two legs for this, but after about an hour of Tomas prancing around him every time he successfully pulled the rope away, dangling it near Paul but never letting him grab it (but becoming so whiny and distraught if Paul pretended to lose interest and started to walk back towards the house), Paul finally gave in and shifted.

And then he really lost track of time, because it was far too entertaining to just stand there and lock his jaw on the end of the rope while a fluffy pup tried his best to growl viciously (like Tomas had a vicious bone in his body) and drag him around the yard.

By the time he had Tomas shifted and fed and packed off back to his own apartment for the night, it was much later than Paul had intended. He was just pulling on his pajamas after a quick shower when he realized that it was already nearly nine, meaning that it was almost eleven in Nashville. James hadn’t texted goodnight, so he hadn’t given up and gone to bed yet, but he was probably close to doing so seeing as Nashville had a game the next day.

“Jamie, I’m so sorry,” he said as soon as the Skype call connected.

“Well yeah, you should be,” Carter said as the camera blinked into focus. His face was a little too close to the screen, like he was just settling it into place, but Paul could make out enough of the background to see that he was in James’s bedroom, which presumably meant he was in James’s bed, at eleven at night, because of course he was.

“We have been waiting for a very long time, Paul,” Goose tsked, but it was made a little difficult by the fact that he was eating what appeared to be pizza, oh God,  _in the bed_?

“You better have a napkin,” Paul grumbled, closing his eyes and telling himself that they were over two thousand miles away and any grease stains were  _not his problem_.

“We do, we do!”

A fistful of napkins was inadvertently shoved in front of the camera as the sounds of James shoving his way onto the bed drifted over the speakers. There were a few grunts, and a bark, which Paul had to assume was Calle somewhere in the mix, before the screen was righted, the computer properly settled into James’s lap, and Paul finally got to see his fiancé’s smiling face for the first time all day.

“Hey Paulie, so who was your hot date?”

It really said something for how stupidly gone Paul was over James, that even that wasn’t enough to sour the happy feeling in his chest at getting to see James again.

“You know, with so many men in your bed while I’m away, maybe I should be looking for one.”

Paul would give James credit for his scandalized gasp, if only Goose and Carter’s didn’t entirely outshine him.

“Nealer is a  _catch_!” Carter protested.

Goose gestured sharply with his pizza, whose cheese was making a concerning effort to slide off the side.

“I’ll have you know that just today our very own James Neal figured out how to remove three different types of stains from a carpet,” he said. “You’re never going to guess what two of them were.”

He clearly wanted Paul to guess, and Paul got the distinct impression that he clearly didn’t want to know what they were.

“Really?” he said, smirking in James’s direction the best that he could through a screen.

James flushed, looking obviously pleased with himself.

“It looks really good,” he said proudly. “Calle helped too.”

At hearing his name, a grey furry head popped up from somewhere under the blankets, jostling the camera as he did so. James righted the screen and scratched Calle behind his ears with a fond smile.

Something about that image, of James being so affectionate with his pack’s youngest, made Paul feel the need to blurt out, “I was actually playing tug of war with Tomas Hertl.”

James had no right for his incredulous face to look that attractive.

“You played tug of war with your teammate for like, five hours?”

“It was nowhere near five hours,” Paul scoffed, but James’s raised eyebrows said he wasn’t buying it.

“Wow, Nealer, you won’t even play fetch with Calle for that long,” Carter said.

James rolled his eyes and shoved Carter out of frame.

“That’s because some of us don’t have super-wolf strength and stamina and all that. Some of us normal humans need to take a break sometimes.”

There was a lot of derisive muttering that the speakers couldn’t pick up, followed by James leaning over and shoving both Carter and Goose away from him. Calle took that opportunity to scramble out from under the blankets and up onto the pillows, curling behind James so that his head stuck out next to James’s hip.

“So what’s up with Hertl?” James asked. “Should I be jealous?”

He was clearly teasing Paul, but Paul felt a flush creep up behind his beard regardless. Not because James should feel jealous – oh dear God, no – but because he had no idea how to explain that he had spent his entire afternoon playing tug of war with his teammate over a dozen years his junior simply because Tomas had smiled at him and asked really nicely.

“I just wanted to spend time with my new pack,” he said, trying to keep his tone light and casual.

James’s eyebrows were creeping up again, though his smile was getting bigger by the moment.

“You didn’t do that with my pack.”

“I played with your pack plenty,” Paul protested.

Carter leaned back into view, shaking his head in mock disappointment.

“Not like that, you didn’t. I’m thinking we should feel replaced.”

“I’m thinking we should feel  _insulted_ ,” Goose countered, lying down against the headboard so he came back into view with his head propped on top of Calle’s. He was still holding the pizza, and Calle’s eyes were tracking it carefully.

“Yeah, Paulie,” James said, amusement curling around the edges of his voice, “What does San Jose have that we don’t?”

Now Paul knew that his blush was showing, even without having to look at the small square showing his feed on the screen. James was the only one who could get that sort of reaction out of him.

“It’s just different,” he said, feeling a little helpless in the face of James’s teasing smile. “It’s…quieter. Calmer. Less chaotic. The pack doesn’t spend as much time together but it’s okay. Everything feels very…normal.”

“Five hours of tug of war is normal?” James asked, deadpan.

“It wasn’t five hours!”

“Tell me, Paulie,” James said, leaning in closer to the camera, an absolutely devilish smile curling his lips. “What is it about your new Czech boyfriend that has you blushing so much?”

Well that did absolutely nothing to help the blushing problem. Especially when James was talking in that low, teasing voice that didn’t usually come out in front of other people.

“He’s not my boyfriend!”

Paul doubled down on his resolution to never, ever let James hear about the “wolf boyfriends” thing.

James continued on as if he hadn’t spoken.

“What is it that he gives you that I can’t? Is it the tug of war? I can play tug of war with you, Paulie, I can play all  _kinds_  of tug of war!”

The fact that James was clearly trying very hard not to start laughing, and that Paul and Carter were in hysterics next to him, didn’t help Paul’s mortification one bit.

“You know that’s not-”

“Paulie, are you replacing me with a hot young Czech piece of ass?” James shouted loud enough that Paul winced.

His pack probably would have winced too, if they weren’t so busy gasping for breath.

“Maz will be so jealous he didn’t get picked first,” Goose sobbed, shoulders shaking with breathless laughter as he buried his face in Calle’s fur. Calle took the opportunity to helpfully eat the rest of the pizza from his hand.

Paul decided that this was going to be his best opportunity to exit the situation gracefully and return to fight again another day.

“Goodnight Jamie, I love you, talk to you tomorrow!” he said, quickly ending the call and slamming his laptop shut.

God, but he never used to feel this flustered, ever. He prided himself on keeping a level head, and that whole conversation had been decidedly not that.

But in the end it still felt better than admitting that a 22 year old cub had Paul wrapped around his finger less than a month into the season.

His phone buzzed then, and he already knew who it would be.

 _WEAK!_ , James texted. But right after that, he sent,  _love u, paulie, goodnight_ , followed by a slew of heart and sleep emojis.

Paul smiled, texted back,  _I love you too, Jamie. Goodnight_ , and told himself that he was going to be a picture of composure the next time he spoke to the pack.

As long as he never, ever had to try to explain what a werewolf boyfriend was.

~~~

“I don’t know,” Goose was saying, chewing his new piece of pizza with a thoughtful expression. “He makes it sound like he thinks we’re trashy.”

Pieces of half-chewed pizza fell onto the bed as he spoke, but they were quickly scarfed down by Calle, so it was almost like it had never happened.

Carter grabbed Goose’s wrist and brought it closer so that he could take a bite from the pizza still in his hand.

“I don’t know where he’d get that idea,” he said, giving Goose’s wrist a pat in thanks. “We’re fucking classy.”

“Maybe he’s trying to replace us?”

“Maybe he’s trying to replace  _Calle_.”

Both Goose and Carter shot Calle a meaningful look. He whined and stared up at them with his biggest, saddest eyes, though actually that might just have been because he was trying to beg for the rest of Goose’s pizza again.

“Paulie’s not replacing anyone,” James huffed, turning the bathroom light off and crawling back into the bed. Everyone obligingly shifted to make room for him again. “He loves us all very much and there’s room for more than one pack in his life.”

His packmates snorted loudly, but shut up quickly after James flicked them on the side of the head.

He waited for all food and food remnants to be properly removed from the bed (he’d make them put it in the fridge, but someone would eat that cold pizza on the nightstand long before it attracted ants, so it was okay) before leaning over to turn off the lights.

After that was done, James leaned forward in the dark to reach the wolf curled at the end of his bed who hadn’t moved once the entire Skype call, watching them all carefully but never making a sound.

He rubbed slowly over the top of his head, carefully stroking over smooth ears.

“I can’t promise we’re not always this weird,” he said quietly, his voice hushed even if he knew everyone could hear it, “Because we totally are. But I do promise that this is a good pack. I think you’re going to like it here.”

Cody shifted suddenly, just enough to lick James’s hand just once before tucking his nose back under his tail and presumably trying to sleep.

James settled back against his pillows and counted it as a win.


	45. Sharks: Pickles Wants to Be a #wolfboyfriend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompted: I want to know more about Pickles’ careful argument for why he too should be allowed to be part of the secret werewolf boyfriend club
> 
> The prompt is in reference to a line in the previous fic. This is only dialogue, because it was more fun to write that way.
> 
> 1/11/18

“Cooch, how long have I known you?”

“No.”

“Like what, almost ten years now?”

“No.”

“We have been  _good friends_  for almost  _ten years-”_

“ _No.”_

“-and you won’t even let me be in your wolf club?”

“It’s  _wolf boyfriends_ , and no.”

“But the new guys get to be?”

“That’s because they’re wolf boyfriends.”

“That doesn’t make any sense! I have been a good friend - you could say a  _boyfriend-”_

“You have a wife, so no.”

“But it’s not like you’re all actually boyfriends either!”

“You don’t know that.”

“I don’t - of course I know that! You aren’t, like, dating  _all_  of them.”

“…”

“Cooch. I know you aren’t dating all of them. You aren’t even dating one of them.”

“But, like, I could be. If I wanted to. I just don’t.”

“That doesn’t explain why they get to be wolf boyfriends and I don’t.”

“Why do you  _want_  to be a wolf boyfriend?”

“I don’t - I don’t know, because wolves are like dogs, and I want to be involved in everything with dogs! You know that. Nobody does stuff with dogs and doesn’t tell me about it.”

“Okay, well wolves aren’t dogs, so.”

“It’s not like you have actual wolves.”

“…”

“Cooch.  You don’t have actual wolves.”

“…”

“You can’t just walk away when I’m talking to you- Cooch!  I just want to be in your club!

“………Hey Paul, us defensemen got to stick together, right?”


	46. Predators: Nealer's Full Moon Run

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompted: Does Nealer ever get to lead his pack on full moon runs? I mean he can’t run faster than a wolf but he can go hard while his werewolves trot behind him...
> 
> This story takes place during Paul's visit to Nashville over the summer of 2015, and must be read to understand the upcoming third part of the Nashville trilogy.
> 
> Alternative titles for this story include "James Neal Channels His Inner Drew Stafford" and "James Neal Sings 'Part of Your World.'"
> 
> 1/15/18

“Well, like, what does a normal alpha do on a full moon?”

The pack all shifted around uncomfortably. James got the distinct feeling that they didn’t really want to tell him, which, okay,  _ouch_.

He understood that he’d probably be kind of a killjoy for them. Usually on full moons, the pack all went running together – well, the wolf part of it, at least. James knew that they went fast, that instincts ran closer to the surface and communication was in a language of scents and growls and minute posturing that James could never hope to understand. He knew that the pack would often go hunting together, just for the sport of it even if they didn’t actually plan to catch anything.

That was the sum of what he knew. Usually on a full moon, when the pack was at home and had the chance to find a place to go for a real run instead of holing up in a hotel room, they shifted, gave cursory greetings to James, and then scampered off for a few hours while James huddled up on a park bench or under a tree, playing games on his phone and waiting for whatever magical witching hour told them it was time to come back.

It was fine, really. He brought a blanket in case it got cold, and some snacks, and if the weather was poor then he could always go sit in his car.

They’d told him he could just stay home if he wanted, the first few times the pack all ran together, but James was quick to tell them that he was perfectly fine the way he was.

He’d done the whole waiting-at-home routine before, back in Pittsburgh. He remembered the nights of sitting up waiting for Paulie to come home, worrying that it felt like he was later coming home than last month, that maybe something had gone wrong. It was dumb to wait, of course – Paul was only out with Brooksie and Borts, probably having a great time, and he’d always come back no worse for wear, every time scolding James for staying up so late waiting for him.

But it still felt wrong, letting Paul go off alone, never getting to be part of something that was obviously such a big part of his life.

And so when James’s pack first started going out together on the full moon, he insisted on going with them, even if all he could do was wait a little bit closer to his pack than he would be if he were waiting up at home. At least if he was in the same general area as them, it felt like he was still one of the group.

He knew in a technical sense that he didn’t belong. It didn’t take a genius to put it together: there weren’t supposed to be humans in a pack of wolves. (If there were, he figured, you’d see it a lot more in the wild.)

But for whatever reason, his pack had chosen him as their alpha. They actually wanted him to be in charge of them, guiding them, when they knew with actual concrete experience that James couldn’t even guide them out of an IKEA. It was…humbling, if he had to put a word on it. They had this amazing thing going, and they not only let James be a part of it, but they wanted to let him lead it.

He told himself that it was selfish to ask for more. Most humans never even got to experience what James already had, a werewolf pack and a mate to boot. They didn’t need him there hovering over them, always scrounging for another moment of their time, another scrap of their world that he was just barely able to touch.

It felt like that a lot, actually. There were so many things that James missed out on: the way that the others could hold a conversation with a scent that James couldn’t even pick up on and a flick of the ear; the cultural differences of wolves from different countries that everyone else already knew; just the sheer ability to actually have a clue who the wolves were on an opposing team.

The boys had teased, once, that James was the human equivalent to a particularly blind, deaf, and senile old werewolf: his senses were dulled, he wasn’t very fast, he had no clue what was going on half the time, and he wasn’t very good at shifting.

James had laughed at the time, because it was all completely true and there was no way he could deny it. There were parts of their world that he’d never experience, things he could never truly understand without having experienced them firsthand, without having  _lived_  them.

So when he’d been able to get his pack all together, with Paulie to boot, and the full moon came around…well, James thought that maybe he could be a little greedy, for once. Maybe he could give in and ask for one of those experiences; maybe he could be just a little bit closer to his family.

He’d tried to be so casual about it, too, but anyone who knew James could tell you that subtlety wasn’t his strong-suit.

When he’d said, “So, uh, hey, I was thinking, crazy thought, what if I, like, went running with you guys tonight?”, the initial reaction had been laughter. Even  _Paulie_  had laughed, like what James had said was adorable and also patently ridiculous.

After a minute or so the laughter died down, probably around the time that they all stopped making quips about how it would be more of a light walk than a run with him coming along and realized that James was deeply scrutinizing the pattern of the granite in his countertop and also wasn’t laughing.

“Jamie,” Paul said quietly, reaching out to put a hand on James’s hip. He sounded embarrassed and a little remorseful, and that really wasn’t what James was going for here.

He put on his best media smile, the tight, too-bright one for taking photos with fans after shitty games where all he wanted to do was go home and bury his head under a mountain of pillows until he could pretend the world wasn’t there anymore.

“No, no, it’s fine,” he said, stepping away from the counter and smiling blindly at the group around him. Paul’s hand fell to his side, and he frowned, and no, nope, Paulie’s pouty upset face was  _not_ what James wanted out of this interaction.

“Seriously, I’m fine. It was a stupid question. I just thought that, like, y'know, you guys said I was like, sort of your  _alpha_  and shit, and that, because real alphas, like, lead their pack on full moons and stuff, that maybe I should be doing that too? It was dumb, I know, forget I asked.”

He crossed his arms in front of him, and told himself that it was because his air conditioning was a little too strong, and not because he felt like a particularly pathetic bug pinned under a sad wolfy microscope, what with all of the pitying hangdog expressions he was receiving.

“You’re a real alpha,” Calle said. He sounded almost petulant, which was fitting, seeing as he was wearing that frown that he always got when he thought someone was questioning James’s position in the pack, like he was pouting with his whole face.

It was sweet, really, if only a little misguided.

“Well, yeah, I know. Yeah. Just, like, I’m not a werewolf, so I’m not like, a  _real_  real alpha, y'know?”

“You’re the alpha in all the ways that count,” Rich said quietly. His voice was a little husky, and he was staring with enough intensity that James had to duck his head to avoid it, something that he was sure a  _real_  alpha wouldn’t have done.

“Thanks,” he mumbled, rubbing a hand over his hair. “I know. I just…whatever, it doesn’t matter.”

He could feel his face getting hot, knew that he was turning red, and that made it all ten times worse. He had six werewolves staring at him, one of whom was his  _fiancé_ , all with varying levels of pity, and this was just  _so_ not what he wanted to be doing right now.

“You know what, I think I’m just going to like, go to the library or something, maybe get out a few books, and then I’ll just stay in tonight-”

“You’re not going to the park with us?”

And okay, wow, this whole bowing out gracefully to save himself further humiliation thing would be a hell of a lot easier if Calle didn’t look so scandalized and hurt about it.

Paul shot him a strange look.

“You go to the park with them?”

When James rubbed the back of his neck and shrugged, the frown only got worse.

“You never used to go out with the pack in Pittsburgh.”

Shit, this wasn’t going the way he’d planned.

“Well, yeah, no. Because, like, it was private wolf stuff. You guys didn’t want me there.”

To be honest, James had never really asked if his own pack wanted him there on full moons. He’d just inserted himself into the proceedings and refused to take no for an answer.

In retrospect, it was quite possible that he’d never been formally invited to anybody’s wolfy outings because they actually  _didn’t_  want him there.

That…actually felt really shitty. He could see where they were coming from, and he couldn’t blame them for it, but now he kind of just wanted to go lick his wounds in private and also die of mortification.

The library wouldn’t care if he just smothered himself in the backseat of his car in their parking lot, right? Or maybe just drank a chocolate milkshake and felt sorry for himself for a while. They couldn’t mind the second one, at least.

But now Paulie looked gutted, like James had slapped him and also told him they were breaking up.

“Jamie…” Paul’s voice almost broke, and that made it so much worse, because Paul’s voice  _never_  broke.

“Jamie, we never said that we didn’t want you there.”

“Um, you didn’t have to?”

James took another step back; he couldn’t help the flinch when six werewolves stepped forward in turn.

“It was like, implied. By the whole part where I’m not a wolf? And, like, you never asked, so I figured that you thought even I could take that hint…”

This wasn’t helping. Paul looked even more upset, and Maz and Calle were looking five different kinds of distraught, and Carter and Goose had the softest, most guilty expressions and James had  _never_  seen those two look so downtrodden before, not even after what Shea put them through, and Rich…

Rich just looked like he wanted to give James a hug. Like maybe he understood.

That was probably the only reaction that would feel okay, right about now.

“I never thought you were interested,” Paul said softly.

James grimaced and looked away.

“I mean, you never actually asked.”

He glanced up just in time to see Paul wince.

“I guess I should have. I just didn’t think you’d want to. It wouldn’t be very fun for you, because-”

Paul cut himself off, but James knew what he was about to say.

“Because I’m a human,” he said softly. He took in the faces around him, varying levels of miserable and contrite. “Yeah…yeah.”

He nodded.

“That’s why I, like, didn’t have any expectations or anything, I didn’t think you guys would want to bring a human along. But then, when I got here and you guys all decided I was your alpha-” Here he nodded at his pack. “I just thought it would be, like, cool, you know? To spend the full moon with the pack. Because that’s what a real alpha would do.”

Calle made a pained noise, and James held up a hand to forestall any of his kneejerk protests.

“And I know I can’t, like, run as fast as you guys, or hunt, or play your little wolf games or anything, but I thought that, like, maybe it would be nice if I could try to just be a part of things, the way a normal alpha would?”

Everyone looked around at each other, maybe just so they wouldn’t have to look at James.

“Jamie,” Paul sighed, and James couldn’t help but tense up. He nodded, swallowed, looked at the ground.

He knew that tone.

That was the, “you’re sweet, and I love you, and I’m sorry to say it but that’s just not possible,” tone. That’s the tone that James got when it was midway through the season and he was missing Paulie and he started nonsensically whining, “But why  _can’t_  you just run away to Nashville so we can be together?”

He knew the answer then, just like he knew what Paul would say now.

James’s throat went tight.

“Jamie, you know I’d love for you to come along-”

His hands balled tight, nails dug into his palms.

“-but it’s just not really-”

“Of course you can come with us, Jimmy.”

James wasn’t the only one who nearly gave himself whiplash, his head jerking around to stare at Rich in absolute shock.

Rich had his arms crossed defiantly, staring back at them all with a flat expression as if daring them to contradict him. Actually, he was staring directly at Paul, and as James watched, his chin jerked just the slightest bit to the side, as if in challenge, and Paul-

Paul had gone very, very pale.

“Yeah, of course you can come with us. You’re our alpha; an alpha should be able to run with their pack, if they want to. And shame on fucking us for not inviting you along before.”

Rich was watching the pack, as he said that, and James was struck by the sudden realization that Rich had never actually spent a full moon with the pack before, other than Maz.

Then Rich moved so he was standing alongside James and put a hand on his shoulder, far enough up that his fingertips just barely brushed James’s neck.

“You’re our alpha,” he said again, more quietly. “And I’m sorry if we ever made you feel differently.”

Given that the only full moons Rich had ever spent with James were last fall before he got sent down, and that he’d spent both of those curled up with James on the couch in his fur (with an interlude to play some strange form of tag in the yard), it was pretty clear that Rich was actually addressing the pack.

When James had chanced a glance at Paulie, his mate was watching them with a too-blank expression, the way he only got when he didn’t want James to know how he felt.

That kind of only made it worse.

Everyone had nodded along with Rich’s assertions, in one of the most uncomfortable and ashamed shows of solidarity that James had ever had the misfortune to experience. It felt like when the teacher scolded the class and made them all apologize to someone; everyone seemed more upset at the scolding than about the alleged wrongdoing.

By the time they made it to the park that night, James was strongly reconsidering finding out if the library was still open. Or maybe he could just download something to his Kindle instead-

He jumped when Paul suddenly appeared at his side, wrapping his arm around James’s waist and tucking his fingers into James’s back pocket.

Usually James would melt at a move like that – it was one of his favorite Paulie-moves, to be honest – but Paul had been so strangely quiet and reserved since everything that happened back at the house, and James felt with growing unease that it was because he really didn’t want James here tonight.

“Hi, Paulie,” he said quietly, feeling wrong-footed and breathless for all of the wrong reasons.

It was getting late – they had to wait for a cover of darkness, which meant waiting until well after eight before the sun’s last rays finally began to disappear below the horizon and the park cleared out. It was incredibly humid though, the air thick with moisture and mosquitoes, and James did his damnedest to focus on that and not on how he’d never felt uncomfortable to be around Paul before.

Paul said nothing, but drew James closer to him until their chests were pressed together. He pressed his face into James’s neck and breathed deeply, an act that was familiar enough that James finally started to relax.

“Paulie…” he whispered.

He felt Paul’s lips press briefly against the soft spot behind his ear, before they trailed downwards and Paul tugged back the collar of James’s shirt just enough so that he could press a firm kiss to the bite scar on his neck, their mating mark.

James felt his breath catch in his throat.

Paulie was making some of those happy grumbly sounds that James usually only got to hear when Paul was a wolf or when he was having a  _very_  good morning, and he leaned back just enough to kiss James’s slack lips and smile.

“So how do you want to do this?” he asked James, looking very pleased with himself.

“Um…”

James pulled away enough so that he could see the pack, though Paul seemed pretty intent on keeping at least one arm around him.

“Well, like, what does a normal alpha do on a full moon?”

And that was how he got to where he was now, his packmates all silent and refusing to make eye contact.

It made sense that they’d be uncomfortable – they’d kind of all been bullied into letting him participate. It still hurt, though, like they’d just spent all day pressing even harder on a bruise that had never been given a chance to heal. Rich might want him to come along, and maybe Paulie, now, but his pack?

Decidedly not, apparently.

“Uh…”

He grimaced, and when nobody appeared ready to say anything, he closed his eyes in defeat.

“Look, if you don’t want me here, I can still leave-”

“No!”

James’s eyes shot open and he took a step back in surprise, or at least he would have, if Paul’s grip hadn’t suddenly gone iron-tight on his waist.

He didn’t even know who spoke, because so many voices had shouted at once.

His pack looked…distraught.

“You can’t  _leave_.”

James wasn’t sure what surprised him more, the tone in which the words were being said or the fact that it was Carter who said them. He looked disgusted and a little annoyed that James would even suggest the idea of leaving.

“You’re our alpha, you’re supposed to be here,” Calle added, wide-eyed and far too sincere.

The others were all nodding firmly, and based on their expressions, James didn’t doubt that they were telling the truth.

He sighed and dropped his hand down to Paul’s on his waist, lacing their fingers together and squeezing.

“Okay. Fine. Then tell me what an alpha’s supposed to do when they actually get to spend the full moon with their pack.”

Everyone started to get all shifty again, and it was like pulling teeth to get them all to finally use their words.

It was, essentially, what James had thought: the pack would go running, and the alpha would take the lead, deciding where they went and what they did. If they scented prey, it was the alpha who decided if they gave chase and the alpha who led in the hunt (and when prey was caught, the alpha was also –  _ew_  – the one who got first dibs on the kill). If they ran across another pack ( _what_ ) it was the alpha who decided how to proceed.

The alpha was responsible for keeping track of everyone, for making sure that nobody strayed too far or got themselves lost or did anything stupid. The alpha defended the pack against any and all threats, with their claws and their teeth and their life.

It was becoming rapidly apparent exactly why his pack had been so reticent to tell him what alphas usually did on full moons, because it pretty much solely consisted of things that James wasn’t capable of doing.

They all knew that no matter how physically fit he was, he could never keep pace with a literal pack of wolves, and he certainly couldn’t help them hunt. He didn’t even think that there was a possibility of running into other wolves (he’d kind of thought that they somehow existed only on hockey teams, even if the wolves on hockey teams had to come from  _somewhere_ ). He couldn’t scent anybody, and he couldn’t see for shit in the woods once it got dark out.

Essentially, he wasn’t a wolf, and there was no way he could pretend to be.

He was thankful for the encroaching darkness, which hid a hot flush of shame that curled through his chest and up his neck, making his face and ears burn. The pack was getting antsy – Calle and Maz were practically vibrating out of their skin with excitement to get going – and here he was, having made such a huge deal about wanting to be included when it was all stuff that everybody knew he could never actually do anyway.

Fuck.

 _Fuck_.

Why didn’t he just learn his place and stay there? They could call him their alpha all they wanted, but when it came right down to it, the things that a real alpha was expected to do, James was literally unfit for the job.

God, and to think he’d come off as pathetic enough that they’d decided to humor him anyway.

He really knew how to fuck things up, didn’t he? For himself and for everyone else. Because here he was, ruining their night-

Paul’s hand squeezed his hip again, and James startled out of his thoughts.

“Jamie,” Paul said, his voice close to James’s ear, “What do you want to do?”

Christ, and they’d been waiting for James to give the go-ahead to shift all this time, while he was standing there having some sort of existential crisis right in front of them. What a great alpha he was.

“Oh! Oh, yeah, of course, you can all…” He waved his hands in a circular motion that he hoped somehow conveyed transforming into werewolves. “Go on, shift and be free.”

After years of locker rooms, he’d still never seen someone throw their clothes off as quickly as the cubs did.

He soon found himself surrounded by six wolves, all of whom were staring up at him. It was actually kind of intimidating, not because they were wolves, but because they all were waiting for  _him_  to decide what to do when he could barely decide what socks to put on in the morning (when in doubt in the summer: none).

But Maz was wagging his tail so hard it was a fluffy brown blur behind him, and Calle was practically prancing in place. Paul was a firm, heavy weight pressed against James’s leg, nuzzling at his hand and licking it until James gave in and rubbed behind his ears.

That…kind of made it a little better.

“Okay. Let’s, uh…go?”

Apparently those were the magic words, because Carter and Goose started barking, which got the cubs going, and then they were all circling around James, maybe like they were…

“Oh. Right. I go first. Okay.”

He started off down a jogging trail near the clearing they’d been in, because it was just about the only way he stood a chance of not tripping headfirst into a tree two minutes in.

The wolves all fell in behind him in a chorus of riotous barks.

Maz and Calle kept chasing each other, running out in front of James and then looping back around behind him. At a guess, James would say they were each trying to catch the other’s tail (or their own, whichever happened first). Carter and Goose were trotting along behind him, Carter’s tongue hanging out in a happy pant even though they’d only just started.

Paul was still at James’s left, never straying out of touching distance but giving James his space to run.

And Rich, Rich was to his right, close enough to be a matching bookend to Paul. Every few steps, James could feel his fur brush against his side as he came in close.

It was all pretty okay, at first. James actually kind of hated running, and aspired to do it as little as possible, but he gave it his all for his pack. But after the first mile or two of the trail, he could feel the burn in his calves, his lungs, and his pack was still just loping along beside him. They were at a brisk trot at best, and he was…most certainly not.

Gritting his teeth, James went into a dead sprint, the kind he usually only did under a trainer’s duress.

There were a few happy barks from behind him as the pack matched his speed. The pups had at least stopped running literal circles around him and had fallen in with the others behind him.

It felt…not perfect, but better. A little bit more like the way things were supposed to be, the wind in his hair, his pack happy behind him.

This was what an alpha would do.

But it could only last for so long. Sprinting, by nature, was a finite activity, and pretty soon James found himself slowing down. The pack slowed down with him, but while James was panting for breath, they were still raring to go. Carter started ducking into the woods around them, popping in and out of the trees with every few yards. Calle and Maz seemed to think this was an excellent game and started doing the same, weaving in and out of the trees, still trying to nip at each other. Then one of them nipped at Goose as they ran by, and he was joining them, all four weaving in and out of the brush.

James could barely see the path in front of them, with the thick tree coverage blocking the light of the full moon, and he for sure couldn’t see his wolves through the trees. He could hear them, yipping and crashing around in the underbrush, but he nearly tripped over what he thought was Calle when he suddenly shot out onto the path in front of him.

“Fuck!” he shouted in surprise, trying to jump out of the way. He successfully avoided Calle, who was able to turn on a dime and veered to the side, but James wasn’t nearly so lucky as his toe caught a divot in the path that sent him crashing to the ground.

He hit the ground hard, only just barely getting his hands underneath himself so that he didn’t land on his face. It took him a moment to remember how to breathe again, feeling as if he’d had all of the air slammed out of his lungs. He could already feel that he’d tweaked his right ankle – it didn’t feel broken, but there was a sharp burst of pain when he shifted it which meant that he’d probably strained something and would have to ice it for a few days.

Which was really hard to do when he was a few miles into a deserted jogging path in the middle of the night, surrounded by nervously whining wolves who were currently nudging at him and sniffing frantically at his head.

James groaned and rolled over, sucking in air through his gritted teeth as his ankle was jostled.

“ _Fuck,_ ” he whispered lowly. He could see scattered moonlight breaking through the leaves above him, right before his entire field of vision was filled with Paul’s ginger muzzle and worried eyes, and fuck, how did he even look worried as a wolf.

“I’m fine. I promise, I’m fine.”

He waved a hand at Paul’s head, until he moved back far enough that James could attempt sitting up.

His ankle reminded him that he most certainly was  _not_  fine, but he wasn’t going to tell any of them that.

“Seriously, I’m good,” he told six sets of glowing, staring wolf eyes. “Just a little winded. But, uh…I think I’m done for the night. You guys should go…”

He gestured off towards the woods where his pack had been playing before.

“Go run. Play. Hunt. Have fun. I’m just gonna…go back and wait, yeah?”

It would probably take him the rest of the night to hobble his way back, but they didn’t need to know that. After how far he’d run, he had to be almost to the end of the path, right? Maybe he could just continue on down it and it would spit him out sort of near where he’d started? How long was this path supposed to be, anyway? He really should have read the trail marker signs before they got started.

A wet nose poked against his cheek and startled James from his thoughts. Paul was still there, way up in his personal space, trying to catch James’s eyes.

James, in turn, did an excellent job of looking everywhere but at Paul.

“I’m good. I’m cool. Go have fun, Paulie,” he said, giving Paul an affectionate pat on the head.

He might be a shitty human excuse for an alpha, but he wasn’t going to ruin their night.

They were all still staring at him, still waiting for…ah.

He was still on the ground, and they weren’t going to believe him until he proved that he was alright.

Well okay then.

With his biggest, toothiest smile, James pulled himself into a kneeling position and then attempted to stand, putting all of his weight onto his left leg.

“What did I say?” he said, holding his hands out to his side. “See? I’m fine. Seriously, go have fun, you guys. It’s your only full moon together as a whole pack, I want you to make the most of it.”

He knew that one was a low blow, but they seemed to go for it – or at least the cubs did, probably realizing that by the next full moon Maz might already be down in the AHL. After those two had scampered off – Calle stopping to run over and lick James’s hand first – James shot a look at the rest of them.

“Well? Is someone going to look after them, or do you expect them to exhibit good judgment all on their own?”

Goose chuffed, what probably would have been a laugh if he were human, and came over to bump against James’s leg – thankfully the left one – before he nipped at Carter’s ear and loped off into the woods. Carter only glanced back at James long enough to receive a nod before he was running after Goose looking for revenge.

That just left James with Paul and Rich, his two hardest nuts to crack and the two that he wanted to get along the most. They seemed hell-bent on ruining those plans, given how they kept sizing each other up, like they thought that they couldn’t trust the other with James.

God, but he wasn’t worth all of this.

“I’m  _fine_  guys,” he said again, letting a thread of annoyance enter his voice.

Paul huffed and nosed at the back of James’s good leg, gentle enough that he didn’t stumble but enough for him to get the idea: Paul didn’t really want to leave him, and he wasn’t going to humor James if he couldn’t prove that he could work first.

Well, fuck.

Sometimes you had to grin and bear it for the ones you loved, right?

Right.

Even if James took that a little too literally.

“I  _am_  fine,” he grumbled, even as he tensed the muscles in his right leg to brace for impact. It was screaming at him already, so he figured it couldn’t get much worse.

It could. It really, really could. He only took a few steps, but every one felt like he was being stabbed, bursts of shooting pain lancing his ankle and up his leg. It was all he could do not to yelp or start panting with the exertion of maintaining an even gait when all he wanted to do was limp or, better yet, sit down again.

He was never going to make it back to the car at this rate.

“See? Look!” he said as he made five steps and very carefully turned around. “Nothing’s wrong. I think I’ve just had my fill of running tonight and nature wanted me to know that. Go, like, hunt rabbits or something.”

At least when he winced, they would think it was at the thought of those rabbits becoming dinner (which was admittedly pretty gross, when he thought about it; Paul was such a stickler about making sure foods were cooked all the way through, too).

Neither Paul nor Rich looked inclined to leave any time soon, both still watching him with expressions that were far too skeptical for wolves, but then a howl rose up from somewhere deep in the woods ( _damn_ , they travelled fast) and both sets of ears pricked up in interest.

James huffed and rolled his eyes, crossing his arms and shaking his head fondly.

“Go on, they’re waiting for you.”

Paul looked at James and then sent a very pointed look in Rich’s direction.

Rich shook his head and snorted – and James had the distinct feeling that had he been human, he’d have been rolling his eyes – before he turned and trotted off into the woods.

After a moment, as if waiting to see if he was truly gone, Paul turned back to James. He licked at his hand and made a very soft, very-not-Paulie-like whine.

James bent over as best he could without losing his balance and pressed his forehead to Paul’s furry one.

“Oh my God, I’m supposed to be the dramatic one here. Go look after those idiots for me, okay?”

He pressed a firm kiss between Paul’s ears for emphasis.

Maybe it was because he was doing something for James – or at least, James liked to see it that way – but with one last, long glance over his shoulder, Paul finally ran off to join the others.

Which left James alone, left to try to figure out how the hell he was ever going to get back to the end of the trail.

He hobbled over to a tree to brace himself against and hopefully take some of the strain off of his one good leg and pulled out his phone. Hopefully he could get a good GPS signal here, which would tell him where he was on the trail and the quickest way to get back to where he started.

“You are such a lying shit, Jimmy.”

James yelped and fumbled his phone; he pretty assuredly would have fallen flat on his ass if it weren’t for the tree behind him.

A figure came sauntering out of the brush, too dark to see yet, but from that voice James knew it had to be Rich.

A very human-shaped Rich.

And, as he approached, a very  _naked_  human-shaped Rich.

Not that James hadn’t seen the pack naked before – locker rooms and werewolf shifting kind of lent itself to that – but it was the principle of the thing.

He kept his gaze very firmly on Rich’s as he got closer, and put on his best smile.

“Hey, buddy, why aren’t you-”

“It’s the right leg, isn’t it? Your ankle?”

James felt his smile freeze in place.

“I- what?”

Now that Rich was up close, he could actually see him roll his eyes.

“You hurt your ankle when you fell. Don’t play dumb, Jimmy, we’re both too smart for that. You hurt yourself, and somehow you got every single one of those idiots,  _including Martin_ , to actually think that you were okay.”

James had actually been praising himself on his acting skills until he put it that way.

“But – like – how did you know?”

Rich’s eyes were probably in danger of rolling out of his head at this point.

“Because I  _know_  you, Jimmy.”

He said it like that was all there was to it, like it needed no more explanation than that.

Personally, James would have preferred more explanation, perhaps with a color-coded diagram explaining how they’d made it from point A to point-wherever-the-hell-this-was, but Rich didn’t seem inclined to be any more forthcoming than that.

He stepped in close, and James would have taken a step back for propriety’s sake (hey, he had a sense of propriety somewhere, usually buried  _way_  deep down), but between the tree and his ankle, he couldn’t really do that.

Rich ignored his discomfort and pulled James’s right arm over his shoulder.

“C'mon, we’re near the end of the trail now. It’ll actually spit us out closer to the parking lot than the entrance, which is good, because I’m not sure how far I can haul your dumb ass.”

He made to move further down the trail, forcing James to awkwardly hobble along with him, using his body as a crutch.

It actually wasn’t so bad, he realized after a few steps.

“You know, it actually probably helps that you’re shorter than me,” he said, “Because then your shoulder is like, at a good height to-”

“Jimmy?”

“Mm?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

James shut the fuck up accordingly, and he didn’t even point out how Rich actually sounded pretty fond when he said it.

He didn’t remember how long it took to get to the end of the trail, mostly because he spent the majority of the trip focusing on hobbling each step forward without sending both himself and Rich tumbling to the ground.

When they finally broke out from under the tree coverage at the end of the path, it was so dark that he almost didn’t realize, until the brightness of the full moon made him squint.

“God, is there like, no cloud coverage tonight?”

He looked over at Rich, only to find that Rich himself was staring up at the moon with some unreadable expression on his face.

“Is this, like, a wolfy thing, or…?”

Rich shook his head and snorted, but in this light, James could see the hint of a smirk on his face.

“Shut up, Jimmy.”

They started the trek back to the car, which was indeed much closer than it had been to the trail entrance – and why wouldn’t they just make  _this_ end the entrance, then?

James cleared his throat and looked down, and then quickly looked back up when he was abruptly reminded that yes, Rich was still entirely nude.

“So, um…you can just drop me off here, and then I’ll like, just hang out until you guys are done…” James said as they reached the car.

Rich propped James up against the passenger door of his car, and then took a step back so that James could see his raised eyebrow.

“What kind of person do you think I am, Jimmy? I’m not leaving you here alone.”

“I- wait, what?”

Rich was rolling his eyes again, reaching in James’s pocket to pull out his keys and unlock the car.

(James had just recently invested in a new SUV, and he purchased it entirely because it looked badass and not at all because it had three rows of seats for maximum wolf transportation capabilities.)

“I’m not going to leave you here,” Rich said. He nudged James to the side just enough that he could get the passenger-side door open, and then helped him slide onto the seat.

He knelt down and started probing at James’s bad ankle; James hissed as bright sparks of pain shot up his leg.

“Don’t you want to, like, put pants on or something?” he asked through gritted teeth.

“Not particularly, no.”

“Oh. Um, okay then.”

Rich carefully tugged James’s shoe off – which still,  _ow_  – and then rolled down his sock enough to get a look at his ankle.

The moon and the cabin lights from the car made it brighter than normal, but Rich’s enhanced eyesight must have been coming into play because James had no clue what he was supposed to be seeing or not seeing on his ankle.

“It doesn’t look bruised,” Rich said after a moment, “And I don’t think it’s broken, but you definitely strained something.”

“No shit, really?”

Rich scoffed, but was still probably much gentler than James deserved as he helped him to recline the seat and get his foot up on the dashboard for elevation.

“We should probably get ice on this,” Rich murmured, frowning at James’s ankle.

“Well, we have to wait for the others to get back. I’ll be fine till then.”

Whenever that turned out to be.

Rich narrowed his eyes at him, as if James couldn’t already tell that he’d be unhappy with that suggestion, but he didn’t say anything.

“So…pants?”

That at least got a laugh out of him. Rich leaned into the car just enough to ruffle James’s hair – and listen to him bitch about it – before he muttered something about James’s “delicate sensibilities,” closed the car door before James could defend his honor, and stated trekking back down the hill towards where the pack had left their clothes.

James was alone then, in his hot car, in the dark, with a throbbing ankle and a whole lot of mixed emotions.

Most of them were kind of shitty.

So he’d gone on his first – and very probably last – run with the pack, and he’d fucked it up. He couldn’t even fucking  _run_  the right way, and he thought that he was somehow going to play alpha to them? That wasn’t even counting that there was absolutely no way he would be able to hunt with them.

He couldn’t even go off the fucking trail.

In a way, it was probably for the best that things had turned out the way that they did. This way, the pack still got their full moon – their run and their games and whatever else it was that they got up to – without James ruining too much of it. And now that he knew better, he wouldn’t interrupt them again.

It just…wasn’t his place. It was one of those wolf things that just wasn’t for him.

Maybe next time he really would just get a book.

He jumped when Rich, now properly dressed, tapped on his window. Cursing under his breath, James toggled the unlock button and Rich made his way around the car, sliding into the driver’s seat.

“What are you thinking about so hard?” Rich asked.

James gave him a thin smile he didn’t really feel and shrugged.

“Nothing. Just tired.”

He was pretty sure Rich didn’t actually believe him, but he thankfully didn’t push for more of an explanation than that.

James really had no idea what he would tell him if he did.

He must have actually been pretty tired, because he dozed off somewhere in there and woke up to the door next to him being wrenched open and someone shouting, “ _What the fuck happened?_ ”

Oh, whoops, that was Paulie.

“Hi Paulie,” he mumbled around a yawn, “Oh, wow, you’re really loud.”

Paul was nervously fretting over him, eyes a little wild as he kept looking between James’s face and his ankle.

“Don’t even try to tell me you’re fine,” Paul growled.

James shut his mouth again.

He hissed as Paul went prodding at his ankle just as Rich had.

The pack made themselves known at that point, Carter and Goose crowding around Paul while Calle climbed in the backseat just so he could hover over James’s shoulder and whine, “But why didn’t you tell us you were hurt?”

“Um…because I didn’t want to ruin everyone’s night?”

A chorus of growls and miserable whines met him, which was actually really weird because everyone was human at that point.

Paul pressed a warm hand against his cheek drawing James’s attention back to him.

“Why didn’t you  _tell_  me?” he asked in a low voice. His face, though…if he wasn’t holding James’s head in place James probably would have had to look away, because he never wanted to have to see Paul look that distraught, especially not over him.

“I wanted you to have fun with the pack.”

Paul shook his head like James hadn’t even spoke.

“You told  _him_  but not me?”

James didn’t need to follow his gaze to know that he was talking about Rich.

“Um, no? He kind of just figured it out on his own.”

That was apparently the exact wrong thing to say, because Paul looked absolutely crushed.

 _Fuck_.

“Paulie,” James said, wrapping a hand around the back of Paul’s neck and bringing him in close so their foreheads touched, a feat given their awkward positions. “Paulie, I’m going to be fine. A little ice and elevation and I’ll be good as new. This isn’t a big deal-”

“Of course it’s a big deal! You’re my  _mate_  and you were  _hurt_  and you  _lied to me_ -”

“Don’t  _yell_  at him,” Rich growled.

Paul pulled away from James just enough to meet Rich’s glare and snarl, “Don’t you even fucking  _start_  with me-”

“Can we all shut the fuck up and go home now?” James shouted, loud and sudden enough that everybody was actually stunned into silence.

Quieter, and with his cheeks burning in shame, James mumbled, “I probably should have started icing this a while ago and I just want to go to bed. Okay?”

Maybe it was because they felt guilty, or maybe it was because he was just that pathetic, but everyone actually complied.

There was almost a scuffle again over if Paul or Rich would drive, before Goose shoved his way between them, bodily moved them both out of the way, and said, “Yeah, no, I’m driving, get in the back.”

It was honestly the most uncomfortable car ride of James’s life, and as a kid he’d once spent over an hour covered in his sister’s vomit after she got carsick on a road trip before they were able to get to a rest stop and clean him up.

Distantly, he kind of thought he’d prefer the vomit at this point.

If their night hadn’t been ruined before, it certainly was now.

Everyone was unusually quiet when they got back to James’s house. James’s pack seemed pretty set on keeping him apart from Paul and Rich, “until they learned to behave themselves,” Calle had said with a sniff.

This meant that Calle and Maz helped James as he washed up and got ready for bed. They shifted and curled around him as soon as they jumped on the bed, two furry cushions on either side of him, both being mindful of the pillows under his ankle.

Carter came in a moment later with a bag of ice wrapped in a towel, which he settled carefully around James’s ankle, ignoring his hiss of pain. He left and came back with some ibuprofen and a glass of water, watching a little too intently to make sure that James took them. Then he, too, climbed onto the bed, settling next to James with a sigh.

“Where are the others?” James chanced asking, running his hand over Maz’s fur.

Carter groaned and rubbed a hand over his eyes.

“Goose told them he isn’t letting them in here until they can get over themselves and shut up for the night.”

James winced.

“Does that mean we have to talk about this tomorrow?”

Carter snorted and reached over to pat his head.

“Oh, buddy, there’s no way we’re not having a  _very_  long talk about this tomorrow.”

Well that wasn’t very reassuring at all.

Carter turned the lights off, and with the added darkness James was almost able to ignore how uncomfortable his ankle was and fall asleep.

He was just starting to drift off when the door opened. The lights were off in the hallway, but James could just as easily hear the three people enter the room, closing the door behind them. The bed dipped in a few places, Goose probably lying next to Carter, and then Rich must have gone next to him, because the person that was carefully settling in next to Calle was definitely Paulie.

“Hey,” James whispered, reaching out over Calle’s head and brushing Paul’s arm with his fingertips. “You okay?”

Paul grabbed James’s hand in his own and intertwined their fingers, bringing them to his mouth and pressing a kiss to their knuckles.

“I think I’m supposed to be asking you that.”

“Me? Pfft, I’m fine.”

He squeezed Paul’s hand for emphasis.

Paul only sighed.

“We’ll talk about it in the morning.”

James couldn’t help wincing again.

If only everyone didn’t make that sound so foreboding.

~~~

The next morning proved to be just about as miserable as the previous night’s car ride, if not worse. Everyone was subdued, walking on eggshells and sending James the weirdest looks, like he was somehow going to hobble off and disappear if they didn’t keep an eye on him.

As it was, Paul was barely letting him move, fussing over him if he so much as tried to get to the bathroom without assistance. It would have been nice, if it wasn’t so irritating.

The fact that Paul and Rich couldn’t stop glaring daggers at each other didn’t really help matters.

When Paul got James set up on the couch, his ankle propped up on a stack of pillows on the coffee table, and then everyone settled in on the chairs around him, looking at James with big, sad eyes…that was probably the absolute most uncomfortable moment of James’s life, made worse because he really physically couldn’t get up and leave.

“Um, guys, we can really skip this whole ‘come to Jesus’ intervention thing – hey, look at that, I used that correctly, I’m basically a Southerner now, the fans will be so excited-”

“Jamie.”

James winced and fell silent.

He was pretty sure that something like this had absolutely never happened to real alphas.

“James,” Paul said again, slowly, and it was somehow worse when he used James’s proper name. “Why didn’t you tell us you were hurt?”

It felt like he was being called out by a schoolteacher for misbehaving, and that wasn’t really a position that James liked to be in as an adult, especially not with someone he was intending to marry.

“Because you were all having a good time and I didn’t want ruin your night. And don’t try to tell me that you all wouldn’t have insisted that we go home immediately, because you would have.”

He didn’t have to look around to know they were all wearing the same guilty expression.

“I wanted you guys to all spend time together, because this is like the one time of year that I can have all my favorite people in one place. And I know how important full moons are for like, bonding and shit.”

He knew that one because he was keenly aware on exactly what he was always missing out on.

“So yeah, I lied, and you all went off and did your wolf-thing and had fun, so everything worked out in the end.”

“You couldn’t even walk on your own,” Goose said with a frown.

“Yeah, but I would have been that way whether or not you guys stuck around, so-”

“If Rich hadn’t gone back for you, you’d have been trying to hobble back to the car on your own.” Apparently Carter was joining Goose in the incredulous frown department.

“Um, yeah, and I’d have been fine? I had my phone. And plus I could, like, fashion a crutch or something. There were branches.”

He’d been planning on it, too, actually, up until Rich showed up. That was the second thing James had planned to look up Google, after figuring out how to get out of the woods.

“You were going to fashion a crutch.” Okay, it kind of hurt to have Rich joining in on the disbelieving-stare thing, too, when Rich had been the only one on his side yesterday.

“I had Google, and I’m actually a capable adult, sometimes, even if I’m a shitty alpha.”

He wasn’t expecting them all to flinch back like he’d slapped them. At least not after last night’s stellar demonstration.

Calle, who was characteristically outraged, started to protest, but James cut him off.

“I think I made it pretty obvious last night that I’m not very good at being an alpha, because a whole lot of being an alpha is being an actual  _werewolf_ , and that is very clearly  _not me_.”

He gestured pointedly at his ankle, iced and elevated, as if they possibly could have forgotten.

“ _Jamie_. Being a wolf isn’t all there is to being an alpha.”

Paul was using that sad-Paulie voice he always got when he thought that James was being unnecessarily hard on himself. James might have thought it was sweet, if it weren’t for the fact that right now it felt a whole lot like pity.

“Okay, but you didn’t even want me to  _be_ the alpha of this pack, like, four months ago, and then you didn’t speak to me again until  _three_  months ago because of it, so I’m not really sure you get to be the authority on human alphas of werewolf packs just yet.”

He knew as he was speaking that it was a low blow, and it was clear from Paul’s stunned expression that it had the exact impact that James had been expecting.

“If he doesn’t, then we do,” Calle said, crossing his arms. He was standing, now, posture stiff, chin raised defiantly.

It was, James thought, a move that would probably be very risky, with a real alpha.

“Would you do that with an alpha like Lundqvist?” he asked, voice flat. God, it wasn’t even noon yet and all he wanted was to crawl back into bed – preferably alone, this time, so he could finally lick his wounds in peace.

He really should have just gone to the library yesterday.

Calle flushed red and his eyes went wide. He swallowed uncomfortably and said, “Lundqvist has never been my alpha.”

James scoffed. “Yeah, okay, but you played with his twin brother, and you’ve all said what he was like, anyway. Would you act that way with someone like him?”

“Well, no, but I-” Calle made a frustrated noise and gave James a pleading look that felt like a kick to the chest. “You’re not like him!”

“I mean, yes, that’s what I was getting at. If I was a  _real_  alpha, I’d be-”

“Jesus Christ, Jimmy, nobody expects you to be Lundqvist,” Rich interjected. “Nobody  _wants_  you to be Lundqvist. He’s good at what he does, but that’s his way of doing things. He’s not you. Alphas all treat their packs differently. Did you know that you’re the first alpha I ever had who didn’t hate my fucking guts? Let me tell you, Lundqvist’s brother was the alpha back when we were in Iowa, and he wanted nothing to do with me. Kopitar and the Kings treated me like a fucking leper, and we all know exactly what Shea’s like.”

Carter nodded. “I used to have Hossa as an alpha, and it was kind of like not having an alpha at all? Like, ‘hey, don’t kill anyone or let anyone know you’re a wolf, awesome, bye.’ And it was even worse playing in the AHL because pretty much nobody even acknowledged you existed.”

“Brooks was really only an alpha in name,” Paul said quietly. “We didn’t need much, and he didn’t go looking for much, either. He was only our alpha if we came into conflict with another pack.”

“My alpha in Grand Rapids was, uh, Nathan Paetsch?” Calle said. “He was okay, I guess, but I wasn’t really close to him. Not like I am with you guys.”

“He’s a good guy,” Goose said, “We came up in Rochester together and played together in Buffalo for years.”

Everyone stared at him, waiting.

“Oh, no, I don’t have, like, sad alpha stories to share or anything. I mean, Briere walking out on us kind of sucked, but Ryan and Jason were great alphas, I got all the appropriate amount of cuddles, I’m good.”

“My first alpha is grandma?” Maz said when everyone turned to him as the last yet to speak. “In Czech we do not have team packs, and Shea is not alpha, so.”

He shrugged and smiled at James.

“You are my alpha.”

He made it sound so simple, too.

James swallowed thickly and stared down at his foot.

“I mean, that’s all well and good, but all of those guys were still wolves.”

Rich snorted. “Yeah, but they weren’t all around for full moons or pack nights or helping you out after a shitty day. I know mine would have been more than happy to throw me to a wolf like Shea who wanted to rip my guts out. This whole thing that you do, taking care of everyone, letting us all hang out at your house and get all up in your personal business all the time, not everybody does that.”

“I bet Lundqvist does it,” James mumbled.

“Okay, but like, I don’t think Lundqvist lets you show up at his house in the middle of the night because you had a shitty game and you don’t want to be alone,” Carter interjected. “You need, like, a formal invitation for that. And he still wouldn’t let you have the run of his house and take over his kitchen and interrupt his Skype calls. Bobrovsky might let you do that, but not Lundqvist.”

Paul sighed and grabbed up James’s hand in his own.

“Jamie, I actually agree with Clune on this one,” he said, and wasn’t that a miracle in and of itself. “You do a lot for this pack, a lot that other alphas either can’t or won’t do. And you know what, having seen how you are with them, it  _works_  for this pack. So what if you can’t hunt with them?”

“I’d never been hunting with a pack before this one,” Carter added. “For what it’s worth.”

Goose nodded.

“In Buffalo we spent half our full moons just playing in the park.”

Paul squeezed James’s hand, bringing his attention back to himself.

“There’s a traditional way to spend a full moon, and a traditional way for an alpha to behave, but that doesn’t mean that that’s what you have to do. There’s no right or wrong here.”

“No, there is,” Calle said.

He came over to James’s couch and sat down on the arm next to him, leaning into James’s shoulder and laying his head on top of James’s.

“You do it the right way,” he said quietly.

And if that didn’t make James’s chest feel a little tight, the way his packmates were all nodding certainly did.

“Fuck,” he muttered softly. He ran his free hand over his face before he sighed and instead rested it on Calle’s knee, squeezing gently.

“I just wanted to – to be a part of things, I guess. I wanted to be a real alpha to you guys, a real part of the pack, and if I was, that would be the sort of thing I could do.”

“And  _yes_ ,” he said, squeezing Calle’s knee again, “I know that I’m your real alpha and a real part of your pack. But it’s hard to feel that way when once a month everyone runs off to do this big important wolf-thing that I can’t ever be a part of.”

When he looked up, everyone was exchanging uncomfortable, guilty glances with each other – well, except for Rich. Rich was glaring at them all like they should have known better.

“That’s kind of on us, I guess,” Carter said after a moment’s hesitation. “Even if you can’t hunt or run like us, we should have found a better way to include you. We never – we never wanted you to feel like you weren’t one of us, Nealer, you’ve got to believe that.”

“We literally wouldn’t even have a pack without you,” Goose added. “It would be pretty shitty of us if we didn’t want you in the pack after that.”

Calle nudged James’s shoulder. “And we’re done being shitty packmates. We got enough of that already before you came here.”

“And I should have asked you if you wanted to come with me, back in Pittsburgh,” Paul said from his other side, squeezing James’s hand again. “I’ve known you long enough that I should have known better than to make any assumptions about you, because you’re always proving me wrong.”

He leaned in then and pressed a quick kiss to James’s cheek, and James thought it said something about how guilty the pack must have been feeling that they didn’t even make their usual squeamish-children protests.

“You’re a good alpha, Jamie,” Paul whispered.

Louder, he added, “And next full moon we’ll all make sure that the pack does something that you can participate in, too.”

James poked him in the ribs. “You aren’t even going to be here for the next full moon.”

“No,” Paul said with a smile, “But my pack will be.”

And that, that was just way too sweet for James to handle, especially when Goose and Carter gave a mocking, “ _Awww_ ,” but still proceeded to crowd in around them in some ungodly attempt at a group hug.

Maz climbed right into a stunned Paul’s lap, but Maz was also completely shameless.

The only one who didn’t join in was Rich. He stood there, arms crossed, watching as everyone piled in around James and Paul. James looked at him over the top of Carter’s hair and nodded to the group, inviting him to join in.

Rich smiled then, that small, genuine smile that James only rarely got to see, and shook his head.

“I’m going to get you more ice,” he said.

But as he walked behind the back of the couch on his way to the kitchen, he paused to lean down and press a kiss to the top of James’s head.

“You really are a good alpha, Jimmy,” he murmured.

He patted James’s shoulder once, more of a touch than a pat, really, and then messed up Calle’s hair before he left the room.

James craned his neck to watch him go, pinned in place by his pack and his injured ankle.

He told himself that was the reason why his chest felt tight and his face turned warm.


	47. Predators: Nests

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompted: Does Nealer’s pack steal his clothes and bedding to make nests around the house? Like just rolling in their alpha’s scent and then tryna look real cute when he catches them with his pillow and six hoodies
> 
> This is half-not!fic, half-fic.
> 
> 1/2/18

Nealer’s house and all of its contents already generally smell like him, so they aren’t bad about nesting in his house.  That’s actually what takes Nealer longer to figure out what’s going on, because if they were nesting in his house, he’d find the piles.  Instead, he just keeps having these instances where he can’t find his favorite t-shirt, and he  _swears_  that he just put down his hoodie but now he can’t find it anywhere, and he’s pretty sure he started this road trip with less room in his suitcase.

Sometimes the missing items reappear after a while and he shrugs it of as his own forgetfulness (it really isn’t that surprising if he misplaces something, even though he  _swears_  that he already looked there already). But after a while he realizes that more things seem to go missing on road trips where, for whatever reason, the guys can’t stay in his room with him.

It all comes to a head when the blanket Paul gave him (the one that he keeps over the back of his couch) goes mysteriously missing when the team is about to go on a road trip and Goose has just been placed on IR.

Everyone thinks it’s a little strange that Nealer calls a pack meeting at Goose’s house, especially Goose, who wasn’t informed.  That means that when Nealer swans in there, he walks right in on a giant nest of clothing and linens in the middle of the floor, with an ovesized wolf nestled in the middle, right on top of his missing blanket.

“Seriously?” he asks, his hands on his hips.

Goose just flicks his tail once and looks entirely unconcerned. But he does roll over on his side, just in case Nealer feels like rubbing his stomach.

Calle starts shifting around a little guiltily, but Carter is already crawling in the nest in his human form.

“Is this mine?” he asks, holding up a black t-shirt to sniff it while scratching behind Goose’s ears.  It must be, because he nods with a satisfied look.

Nealer sighs and rubs at the back of Calle’s neck to get him to stop acting so twitchy.

“Is this like, a normal wolf thing?”

“Yes,” Carter and Calle say at the same time.

Nealer sighs.  “Well, okay then, let’s make it worth your while.”

They all look way too thrilled when he lays down in the nest, pulling Calle down with him.

After a few moments he asks, “Wait, do you have my spare pads here too?”

“Nah, those are over at my place,” Carter says, his voice muffled somewhere around Nealer’s stomach.

He decides it’s just better not to ask, after that.  But if he makes a request for a missing item, it usually shows up within 24 hours, so it’s all fine.


	48. Predators: Wolf Education

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompted: Does Nealer watch wolf documentaries to learn how to parent wolves? Does Calle catch him reading an article about enrichment for large predators?
> 
> 1/17/18

James had picked up a lot about werewolves just from being with Paul for so long. Paul had told him all about how packs worked, about full moons (which turned out to really just be more of a cultural tradition than some sort of cosmic wolf-transforming event), about alphas and cubs and “tactile pack bonding.”

That wasn’t usually a bad way of going about things, because Paul had first-hand experience being a werewolf, for one, and was also always so good about answering all of James’s questions. He never rolled his eyes or treated James like he was dumb for asking something that, to a wolf, was probably really obvious, and he never got bored or exasperated when James had  _just one more_  question for him.

Okay, except for that time James woke him up in the middle of the night to ask if wolves hibernated. That time he’d tried to smother James with a pillow and told him that he’d like to be hibernating  _right now_ , thank you very much.

But for the most part, if James wanted to learn more about wolves, he just went to Paul.

There were some things, though, that he tried to figure out for himself, though.

When he felt insecure, or when the distance from Paul started to bother him, he’d end up Googling a lot about mate pairs in wolves. It was kind of reassuring, just to be reminded that wolves mated for life, even if people sometimes didn’t.

(Then he thought about Shea, and it stopped feeling quite as reassuring.)

And then there were other instances where he figured that he was better off keeping his questions to himself, lest Paul get all frazzled and worried about what was going on back in Nashville when everything was  _totally fine, so fine, really._

Those were usually times when James had questions like “Can wolves swim in scummy swamp water?” and “Is it safe to let your wolves swim in a swamp?” and “What shampoo is best for a wolf’s skin but also gets out that disgusting swamp smell?”

(The third answer was, apparently, not Head & Shoulders, so James was glad he’d looked it up first.)

It wasn’t like he was always able to ask his packmates, either. Part of that was because when he was making alpha-like decisions (such as, “Can the pack go swimming in that questionable-looking swamp?”), it probably wasn’t best to ask advice from the same wolves who were apparently asking him permission before doing something. That was kind of like asking your kids if it was a good idea to let them have Doritos and Mountain Dew for dinner (yet another conundrum that James had had to solve).

And the other part of that was that, well, the pack really wasn’t exactly a fount of knowledge on wolf-care. Particularly on appropriate cub-care.

“But like, when do they officially stop being cubs?”

“I don’t know,” Carter said with a shrug, “You just know, y'know?

“Well, when did  _you_  stop being a cub?”

Carter had stopped and cocked his head to the side in thought.

“Do we ever truly become something else? Or do we just come to realize what we always were all along?”

James was like, 97% sure that he was just bullshitting, but it also could have just been a goalie thing, so he didn’t try to pursue that avenue further.

“Do they need to sleep more, like human babies?” he tried asking Goose. “Because, I mean, Calle and Maz are both, like, 24, which  _seems_  like they should be adults by now and need less sleep? But the human brain doesn’t stop developing until age 25, so they might need  _more_  sleep because their bodies are still, like, developing important circuitry and shit. What do you think?”

“Yes.”

“Yes to which part?”

Goose waved a hand in the air. “All of it, yes to all of it.”

“That’s not an actual answer.”

“ _Yes_.”

So actually James’s packmates were incredibly unhelpful and just liked to watch him suffer.

Which meant that when he’d exhausted his resources and Google just didn’t cut it, James had to look for…outside help.

Despite what everyone thought, James could actually read and did actually have his own, real-life, functional Nashville Public Library card (good at all twenty library locations!).

Did he read, like, the world’s smartest books that won all of the awards? No, because those were usually also super boring.

Did he read books that he enjoyed, even if they were mostly things he wouldn’t be caught dead reading in front of other hockey players? Yes, yes he did.

(Most of his book recommendations came from his mom and his younger sister, but they’d never steered him wrong yet, even if the fact that James had actually read more than one novel by Nora Roberts was a secret that he would take to his gave, Paulie be damned.)

James didn’t go to the library to do a lot of research. Or any, really. Research wasn’t usually something that hockey players had to do.

Particularly not wildlife research, but, well, this was James’s life now.

He didn’t really know where to start, but there were some National Geographic magazines sitting on a coffee table in front of a sofa, and that should have something about wolves in it, right?

Apparently not, though there were some really nice photos of tropical birds and sea creatures. But under those there was a magazine with wolves on the cover, and James snatched it up eagerly.

It became rather quickly apparent as he leafed through the magazine that it was actually intended for kids, given that it had, like, cartoon animals and word games and mazes in it, but it did also have an article on wolves in it that was more helpful than the National Geographics had been.

 _A wolf pup stays with its family until it’s at least 10 months old_ , it said.

Well. James wasn’t sure how that was supposed to translate into hockey-player years. You probably didn’t multiply by seven like everyone said for dog years.

There was also a segment on marking territory, which left James with so many questions, questions that he wasn’t sure he ever really wanted answered.

The really concerning part was where it said that adult wolves fed the cubs by puking up their half-digested dinner for them.

James was fairly sure he didn’t have to do that – as far as he’d seen, everyone in the pack was entirely capable of obtaining, chewing, and digesting their own food – but it gave him pause. He might have to check on that. Did younger wolves need that? How young?

He may have to put age minimums on his pack. He liked supporting new rookies as much as the next guy, but he was putting a hard limit on having to puke up their food for them.

Then there was the thing about teaching pups to take down large prey. They’d already established that James couldn’t really help with hunting, and he was also pretty sure that the pack wasn’t supposed to be killing deer anyways (at least not outside of hunting season, right?).

But he’d have to warn them about being careful anyways, because apparently wolves could be killed if they got kicked by a hoof.

They were better off just sticking to the rabbits, anyways; he had frozen pizzas at home, they didn’t need to hunt for their food.

The library said you couldn’t check out magazines, so James took photos of the article on wolves in case he needed to reference it later.

The photos were cute, anyways. They looked a little bit like his wolves.

His house was surprisingly empty for once when he got back, which was a little odd, but also meant that there was nobody around to judge him when he started watching wolf documentaries on YouTube.

He clicked one at random that was an hour long and had a British narrator, because those always seemed like the high-quality ones.

It turned out to be about how wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park, which James didn’t know was a thing that was necessary in the first place. But apparently all of the wolves in the park had been killed off in the early 1900s because they were seen as pests.

There were pictures, too, awful pictures of dozens of wolves hanging from meat hooks after being poisoned or trapped, people showing off wolf pelts like that was something to be  _proud of_.

“Nealer, are you okay?”

James didn’t actually shriek, but it was a near thing.

“Calle! Oh my God, Calle, don’t look!”

He tried to hide the images, but only ended up pausing on some of the most gruesome ones before he just slammed his laptop shut.

“Are you…crying?” Calle asked, coming around the side of the couch now.

Carter’s head popped around the corner to the kitchen, where he appeared to be putting away groceries.

“Nealer’s crying?”

“I’m not crying,” James said, wiping furtively at his face, which was suspiciously damp.

Calle made a weird noise, like he didn’t believe James and was also kind of upset. He climbed on the couch next to James and curled up at his side, putting his arms around him and murmuring, “Don’t be upset, you’re not allowed to be upset.”

“Now don’t say that,  _Carl_ ,” Carter said as he entered the room. Calle’s nose scrunched up in distaste, just as it always did when someone called him that, and Carter responded by screwing up his carefully-arranged hair as he walked by and plopped down on James’s other side.

Carter threw an arm over James’s shoulder and mussed up his hair too, just to be fair.

“Our fearless leader has the right to feel however he feels,” Carter said. “But what exactly were you watching, anyway?”

He carefully wiped a tear track from James’s face.

James tried not to sound like he was sniffling as he cleared his throat.

“I was, um, watching this documentary on the wolves in Yellowstone. Did you know that they, like, fucking  _killed_  all of them in the early 1900s? Well they did, and they have these disgusting photos of all these dead wolves, and it’s just…”

Calle let out a whine and rubbed his face against James’s shoulder, hugging him tighter. Carter, being Carter, had to grab for the laptop so he could see for himself.

The video was still paused on one of the images; Carter hissed through his teeth when he saw it.

“Yeah, that was a thing that happened,” he said grimly. “I mean, pretty sure they were all real wolves, not werewolves, but it’s still horrible all the same.”

He gently knocked his head against James’s, not unlike some of the wolves in that article.

“Hey, why were you watching this, anyway?”

James shrugged and tried not to look like he’d been caught doing something weird.

“I just wanted to learn more about wolves.”

“By watching nature documentaries? I mean, more power to you, but you could have just asked us if you wanted to know about wolves.”

James narrowed his eyes.

“I’ve  _tried_  asking you guys before. You’re not exactly helpful.”

Carter paused for a moment in thought.

“Oh yeah, you did. Yeah, we’re pretty shitty, sorry about that.”

“I do have some questions though, and I need you to answer me seriously because they’re important.” James shot a careful look at Calle, weighing if he really wanted to do this in front of him, before he pulled out his phone and pulled up the article from earlier.

“Okay, so first of all: can werewolves always chew their own food, or is there ever a stage of life where they need someone to, like, puke up their half-digested food for them?”

Calle sat up so fast he nearly smacked his head into James’s, and Carter made a sound like he was about to puke in demonstration, but then it turned into these hiccupping laughs so he was probably okay.

“Where the fuck did you read that?” Carter wheezed, doubled over and struggling to catch his breath.

When James offered him his phone, he squinted at it.

“What the fuck, Nealer, is this from  _[Ranger Rick](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fkids.nwf.org%2FKids%2FRanger-Rick%2FAnimals%2FMammals%2FGray-Wolves.aspx&t=M2VhYmJjZTMxMjM4NjM4ZjFmY2YwMzBkNTAwZmRkOTdhYzU1ODRmNSxqSTNpd3Fvdg%3D%3D&b=t%3A9H_yMHZoXSJOQHEK1KjFQw&p=https%3A%2F%2Fswedishgoaliemafia.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F169823722374%2Fdoes-nealer-watch-wolf-documentaries-to-learn-how&m=1)_?”

“It was really informative,” James said with a nod. “Well, about actual wolves, but I’m not sure which parts also apply to werewolves. I’m guessing from how you reacted that werewolves don’t need to eat puke, which is good, because I don’t think I can do that, no matter how much I care about you guys. There’s also this whole thing about marking territory, but it’s probably better off if you just don’t tell me about that one because I don’t want to think about you guys, like, pissing all over my yard or something.”

Carter was wheezing again, shoulders shaking with choked off laughter, while Calle was just turning several unhealthy-looking shades of red.

“Oh, and also, none of you guys are allowed to hunt stuff with hooves, because it might be out of season but also I don’t want you to get kicked and then you die.”

Carter still wasn’t in a fit state to reply, but he gave James a thumbs up even as he had his head between his knees, gasping for breath.

Calle, because he was a good pup who listened, nodded very seriously and said, “My mama told me the same thing. Reindeer are very dangerous. Moose are worse.”

It was actually pretty satisfying to have at least one thing right. If Mrs. Järnkrok said it, then it had to be true.

Carter had recovered enough to open James’s laptop again, only now he was squinting at the desktop wallpaper.

“Nealer, who the fuck are these random-ass wolves?”

“Oh, I found that while I was researching. It kind of looks like you and Maz, right?”

“Like hell it does.” Carter wrinkled his nose in a very Calle-esque expression. “I look nothing like that!”

Calle leaned over James to get a better look.

“He’s right, that doesn’t look like him, and the other doesn’t look like Maz.”

“Yes they do!” James frowned, feeling a little defensive. “Look, the grey one has darker fur there, just like Carter-”

“Oh my God, we look totally different. Wait. Do we all look the same to you?”

James scoffed. “Of course you don’t, how else can I tell you all apart?”

“You know what, I’m not sure I believe you. I’m showing this to the guys, this is awful.”

“Out of all the stuff we just talked about,  _this_  is the awful part?”

“It’s like finding out you have a framed picture of someone else’s kids instead of your own,” Calle said, patting James’s knee with a grim expression.

“Yeah, it’s  _creepy_  and  _weird_. And so fucking offensive. Are we not photogenic enough for you?”

James didn’t have to respond, because Carter was already stripping.

“I take fucking  _adorable_  wolf photos, I will have you know. Come on, Calle, we need to fix this.”

Calle was a little too quick to join Carter in stripping, and as James averted his eyes to the ceiling while his packmates shifted, he decided that information on real wolves was only going to get him so far, anyway.

Werewolves, he was constantly reminded, were something else entirely.


	49. Paulie/Nealer, Future, Family Photo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short ficlet for anon who asked, "When Nealer has adopted the whole NHL do they take like awkward giant family reunion photos with just like a pile of wolves in Paulie's backyard?"
> 
> This once again takes place in a vague, nebulous, extremely cracky future where at least Paul has retired and the entire NHL won't get off his lawn.
> 
> 1/17/18

“Jamie, I’m not sure this is the best idea,” Paul began carefully, keeping a firm grip on the bottom of the ladder.

James scoffed and squinted as he held the camera up to his face again.

“We’re  _fine_.  Alright, this distance should be good if everyone scrunches in close.  That means that the Battle of Alberta has to call a truce, c’mon, I see that space between you!  Okay, you know what, where’s the guys from Carolina, nobody hates Carolina - you guys, go sit between them so they stop trying to bite each other!  That goes for everyone, we are taking one  _nice_  family photo, goddammit, and if I see just  _one_  of you biting someone else in this photo, you’re sleeping outside tonight!”

There was a hell of a lot of whining following that, considering that it was actually pretty nice outside, warm with a slight breeze and no chance of precipitation.

It was the principle of the thing, as James always said.

The ladder shifted dangerously as James moved, and Paul jerked to hold it in place.

“This really isn’t stable,” he tried to protest again.

James didn’t seem to hear him.

“What?  Oh my God, shut up, Jason, this isn’t a time to talk about being sensitive to other cultures. I don’t  _care_  if you bite to show you love them, for the next  _five minutes_  you can all survive keeping your teeth to yourselves, okay? Okay!”

Paul watched as James frowned down at the sea of wolves.  He was muttering something under his breath, and Paul was almost sure that he was trying to do a headcount.  That seemed like a fool’s errand, with how many squirming wolves were currently clumped into a writhing mass in the middle of their yard, but if anyone could do it, it was probably James.

“Paulie, we’re missing one, who are we missing- Paulie!  Paulie, get in the picture!”

Paul took a deep breath, reminded himself that he loved James very, very much, and did his best not to roll his eyes.

“I really don’t trust this ladder, Jamie, not with the way it keeps wobbling.”

“Then go get in the picture really fast so I can  _take_  the picture and then you can come back and make sure I don’t die on this ladder, okay?”

“Uh, no, not okay, not if you fall off the ladder because I’m not holding it for you-”

“Oh my God, I’ll hold the ladder,” Tyler Ennis groaned, stalking over and all but shoving Paul out of the way.  Given how small he was and how much James kept shaking the ladder, it looked like they were liable to have two casualties now, but the twin glares Paul was receiving were enough to get him to back off, if only so he could stop hearing about the damn photo.

As quickly as he could he shucked off his clothing and shifted, wanting to get this over with as fast as possible. He trotted over to the edge of the photo, settling in near Goose and Rich.

And then, just because he felt like it, he leaned over and nipped at Rich’s ear.

James’s shriek of outrage was worth it.


	50. Sharks: Tattoos

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In reference to [this](https://www.nhl.com/sharks/news/if-the-sharks-were-to-get-tattoos/c-294850570) article, anonymous prompted: Ok but now that I know Jonesy said that all I can think about is someone trying to figure out if willingness to get a werewolf boyfriend tattooed on you would also make you a werewolf boyfriend
> 
> 1/17/18

“So Jonesy said that if he got a tattoo, it would be of Cooch’s face,” Burnzie said, dropping into the seat next to Joe at breakfast.

“That’s gross,” Joe said pleasantly, not looking up from the article he was reading on his phone.  “Please never repeat that again.”

“No, but wait, think about it.  What if that’s what you have to do to be in their club?”

Pavs, sitting across from them, made a face and put down his bagel.

“They all have to get a tattoo of Cooch’s face?  I mean, Daddy might have done it, but I really don’t think the rest of them would go for it.”

“Tomas would,” Joe said at the same time as Burnzie, Pickles, and Wardo.

“I don’t think it has to be Cooch,” Burnzie continued. “I think it’s just got to be, like, one of the other wolf boyfriends.  To show your dedication, you know?”

“But then they would all have to have a tattoo somewhere,” Pavs countered. “I mean, Deller would probably do it, maybe you could peer pressure Melker, but Timo and Paulie?”

“Whose face would Paulie get?” Eddie mused.

“Whose face would Paulie get  _what_?” the man himself asked, approaching holding a bagel and a bowl of oatmeal.

“Whose face would you get tattooed on your body to prove that you were really a wolf boyfriend.  Paulie, come sit.” Joe patted the empty space on the other side of him.

Paul eyed the space like it was contaminated.  “I’m not sure that I want to, if you’re all debating me getting a tattoo of someone’s face.”

“Jonesy’s getting Cooch’s face, but we’re pretty sure you can pick any of them,” Burnzie explained helpfully.

Paul slowly sat down next to Joe, looking like he was thoroughly regretting his decision already and was currently planning an exit strategy.

Eddie leaned in across the table towards Paul, with his hands folded to show he meant business.

“Hypothetically, if one were to get one of these face tattoos to become a wolf boyfriend, how large would it have to be?”

“Oh my God.”

Paul buried his face in his hands.

“I’m serious!” Eddie protested. “If you have one it must be pretty small, right? But it still counts.”

“Oh my  _God_ , nobody has a tattoo of anyone else’s face!”

“But if someone  _got_  one,” Burnzie said, pointing at Paul who couldn’t even see it anyway, “That would show they were dedicated to the cause, right?  And then they could be a wolf boyfriend?”

“This is supposed to be the  _mature adults’_  table!”

“Oh, no.” Pavs shook his head with wide, innocent eyes. “This is the adults’ table, but nobody ever said it was mature.”

“If I got just a name tattooed on me, would that be enough?” Eddie asked.  “I don’t think my wife would mind if it was just a name.”

Paul stood up, grabbed his things and left, which honestly Joe had been expecting.

“He lasted through two minutes of that,” he said, holding out a hand to Wardo. “Pay up.”

Wardo rolled his eyes and dug out his wallet.

Eddie and Burnzie both looked scandalized, but for very different reasons.

“You were betting on us and you didn’t invite me?” Burnzie whined.

Eddie glared at him. “I have real questions!”

Joe kicked him under the table.  He probably hit Burnzie along the way, but he didn’t really care.

“If it makes you feel better,” he said, “Now you have one answer: you probably don’t have to get someone’s face tattooed on you to get into the club.”

“But,” Pavs said, pointing at Eddie, “It probably wouldn’t hurt.”

The wolf boyfriends should probably put poor Pickles out of his misery soon, because he looked like he was sincerely considering it.


	51. Predators: Apologies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompted: Does Nealer ever trip over a wolfy paw or tail and then apologize profusely when he hears the wolf in question yelp with surprise until someone has to basically grab his face and be like "We're wolves not chihuahuas, it's fine"?
> 
> Okay, I would just like to say that all five of my dogs are at least 70lbs and you can bet your ass that if I accidentally step on their tail I do every single thing that Nealer does in this fic because I am _sorry_. I do not trust people who don’t apologize to their dogs for stepping on them.
> 
> 1/17/18

It wouldn’t have been weird, Carter decided, if Nealer did it all the time.

If Carter was a human and Nealer bumped into him and immediately began to apologize like he was giving confession to a priest,  _then_  Carter might have been unfazed to see Nealer behave the same way when Carter was a wolf.

But seeing as he was totally willing to flick Carter in the side of the head when he was being irritating (a regular occurrence, Carter would admit with pride), it was kind of strange that he would step on the tip of Carter’s tail, hear him yelp in surprise, and proceed to drop to the floor like he’d been shot, grab Carter’s face up in his hands, and press their foreheads together while furtively muttering praise and apologies.

As a wolf, Carter clearly couldn’t bring it up, so he just milked it for what it was worth and rolled over in hopes of enticing Nealer into scratching his stomach.

(It totally worked, by the way.)

He remembered his question though when he saw Nealer trip over Calle’s paw and immediately spin around and drop to his knees to apologize.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry, honey, I didn’t mean that, are you okay?  Let me see…okay, I think you’re alright, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you, I’m sorry.”

Calle, the big ham, was entirely playing into it, with his ears pasted back to look more pathetic, wagging just the tip of his tail oh-so-hesitantly because they all knew it would make Nealer melt.

“Dear God,” Carter groused, watching the whole display from the couch.  “You are just shameless, you know that?”

Calle whimpered pitifully, exemplifying the accusation.

Nealer’s eyes went wide in horror.

“Is he not really okay?  Oh my God, what’s wrong, is he-”

“He is  _fine_ , he’s more than fine, actually, because he’s playing you like a fiddle. Nealer, we’re wolves.  We grow up chewing on our siblings and family as a form of play.  The French ones never  _stop_  chewing on each other. We wrestle, like, all the time. And also, we’re hockey players. We’re used to bumps and bruises and people accidentally stepping on us.  We’re not going to break if you step on our tails once in a while.”

Nealer still looked upset.  “But he cried when I stepped on him!”

“Of course he did.” Carter rolled his eyes. “It’s a knee-jerk reaction, it’s like saying ‘ow.’ Everyone yelps when they suddenly get nipped or pinched, it doesn’t mean they’re dying.”

“But I don’t want to hurt you guys.”  Nealer looked way too guilty for the actual gravity of the situation, which was like, zero.

“You literally slapped Goose upside the head this morning.”

“Okay, yeah, but he was about to drink directly from the orange juice bottle, and that’s gross if you share it with other people.”

The way that Nealer specified “if you share it with other people” gave Carter the distinct impression that this was something Nealer had probably been told by Paul, and that if he didn’t have frequent houseguests, Nealer himself would probably never use cups again.

“But you weren’t worried about hurting him,” Carter pointed out.

“Well, yeah, because it wasn’t really that hard, and he can take it.”

“And an oversized hockey-playing werewolf…” Carter gestured down at Calle, still trying his best to look pathetic.

Nealer made a face.

“But he’s so sad.”

“He’s an attention whore, is what he is.”

If wolves could glare, Calle’s would have burned a hole through Carter by now.

“I just feel so bad, you guys yelp and then you look so sad…”

“Look.” Carter held up his hands. “If you really want to keep apologizing for every sin you’ve ever committed every time you trip over someone’s foot, fine.  I’m just telling you, you don’t have to.”

“I guess…”

“Oh, God, stop looking so dejected, come here.”

Really, for being the one that didn’t need regular physical contact, Nealer was way too ready to hug at a moment’s notice.

~~~

A few hours later found Carter lazing on the couch, texting Pekka about that cooking show he was always going on about, when Calle’s face suddenly appeared in front of him, hovering over him.

“Holy shit!” Carter yelped, almost dropping his phone. “Dude, what the fuck?”

“Don’t you dare ruin this for me, Hutts,” Calle hissed lowly, his eyes huge and dark.

“Ruin what?  And why are you looking at me like that?”

Calle leaned over until he was bracing himself on Carter’s knees, their faces inches apart.

“Nealer’s apologies.  I  _love_  Nealer’s apologies. Don’t you take that away from me, Hutts.”

“Dude, you’re already like, his favorite kiss-ass. I don’t think you need to worry about-”

Calle loomed forward, as much as Calle  _could_  loom.

In a low, dark voice, he whispered, “Don’t you. Ruin this. For me.”

And before Carter could reply, he’d swept out of the room, probably off to follow Nealer around with bright eyes and a wagging tail.

Carter sighed and opened a text to Goose and Rich.

_We really need to get the kid a date, he’s getting kind of squirrely._

Immediately, Goose replied,  _I can get him a squirrel, does that count??_

_Eh. Close enough_.


	52. Predators: IKEA

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> flufflybunnypants asked to see a fic where the Preds pack shops for a new bed for Nealer at IKEA, given that his old (normal) one wouldn't be strong enough to keep holding all of their weight for long. I have never even seen an IKEA in real life before, let alone shopped in one, so this was written with a lot of google and assistance from the audience.
> 
> Fun fact: Nashville actually does not have an IKEA, but one is planned to open there in 2020. #themoreyouknow
> 
> This is set during Paul's visit to Nashville in the summer of 2015, directly following chapter 37 where he meets the pack for the first time, and is before chapter 46 when Nealer joins the pack for the full moon.
> 
> 1/29/18

The whole thing was Paul's fault, really. He was the one who insisted that there was  _no way, Jamie, be serious here_  that James's bed would stand up to regular wolf-piles-plus-James-plus-sometimes-Paulie. Especially not if the guys ever wanted to wedge themselves in as humans.

"There's literally not enough surface area here," Paul had said after his first night sharing a bed with the pack. He was shaking his head with disbelief, as if he somehow disliked waking up with a face full of Maz's fur and Carter lying atop him like a goalie-shaped heated blanket.

"We fit fine," James scoffed, rolling his eyes.

"No, we really don't, and that bed is not made to hold that much weight. Wolves are heavy, and humans are worse. You're lucky the bed hasn't already fallen apart, but you're probably just getting by as it is. What's going to happen if you get a new pup?"

"There won't be other pups," Calle muttered darkly.

Paul took a deep breath and looked at the ceiling like it held all of the answers to their bed-related dilemmas.

"Regardless, it's only a matter of time before something breaks because there are just too many people on that bed for it to handle."

"So what do you suggest?" Goose asked, still sprawled shamelessly across said bed.

"I think the only way this is going to work, logistically, is if we get two large bed frames and bolt them together. Reinforce them as best we can, then get some sturdy mattresses and hope for the best."

Carter actually raised his hand to ask a question, because James's pack was full of assholes.

"But what if one of us rolls into the dip between the mattresses in the middle of the night and gets lost there forever?"

Paul had an expression like all of the patience in the world would never be enough for him to deal with that question.

"Then we'll mount a rescue mission and pull you out. Or just find something to pad the edges of the mattresses so the dip isn't so bad. Or just leave you there because you're professional hockey players and I trust you can find your way out from between a set of mattresses. This really doesn't have to be that big of a deal."

James frowned and looked around his room. It was pretty sizeable, even for a master bedroom, but still...

"Uh, Paulie? Are we going to be able to fit all that bed in one room?"

The look Paul had given him was startlingly solemn.

"We'll make it work."

And that was how James found himself taking his entire pack and his Paulie to IKEA.

Paulie hadn't thought that they really had to bring the pack –  _"aren't they supposed to spend_ some _time at their own places?"_ – but James argued that if they were buying some extra-large franken-bed for the sake of the pack, then the pack should at least get a say in how comfortable it was.

"You do realize how strange it is that you brought five extra men with us to pick out our bed, right?" Paul asked him for the tenth time as they all filed through the entrance to the store.

James just let the words flow right off his back.

"It's only weird if you make it weird, Paulie."

"You keep saying that, but I'm pretty sure the whole situation is already weird."

Goose, because he was an asshole, felt that this was a good time to put his hand on Paul's shoulder and say, "You really have to stop getting so down on your own culture, man."

The flat expression that Paul leveled at him would have just about killed anyone with even a modicum of shame. Luckily, nobody in James's pack seemed to be one of those people, and Goose just smiled.

"Okay, guys," James said, "We are  _just_  looking at beds, nothing else, because I don't want to spend all day in here. No wandering off, alright?"

When he looked over his shoulder to make sure they were all listening, he was already missing four wolves. The only ones left were Rich and Paul, both with their arms crossed and both looking eerily similar in their amusement.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" James whined under his breath.

Rich smiled easily. "You've got 'em trained up good, Jimmy."

James would have flipped him off, but he was a professional athlete in a public space, and also, he didn't want to upset whatever nefarious gods were in charge of IKEA more than he absolutely had to.

He was, on principle, very much a fan of internet shopping, because it meant he neither had to locate a store, travel to said store, spend hours in that store making endless comparisons between a bunch of items that were all pretty similar, and then have to transport all of his purchases back home with him. All of his current furniture had been purchased online, if Paulie or his mom hadn't dragged him out shopping to get them, and so far it had all worked out just great.

Besides, internet shopping meant that he didn't have to get trapped in a Swedish flat-pack furniture hell for what felt like the rest of his natural life quibbling over if he really  _needed_  a rug for his hallway, and what color and pattern that rug would be if he were to need one, which he  _didn't_.

No amount of meatballs was worth that.

(His mom had won on the rug, but that was also the last time James had let someone drag him to an IKEA.)

James knew that Paul wasn't actually a huge fan of IKEA either, namely because he was a bit too house-proud and a furniture snob to boot. He probably would have much preferred to be looking for something higher-quality and more traditional, but that would also mean beds that would be difficult to bolt together and that would look absolutely god-awful once the deed was done.

IKEA was a choice that made sense, but James really saw no reason why they actually had to go to a physical store and try out every single bedding option available. Paul didn't agree with him, though, insisting that it was stupid to purchase a bed without ever having lain in it before, especially when you needed two of them. He argued that this way, they could better assess how easy it would be to attach the beds to each other, and besides, didn't James like the meatballs?

He did, of course, but he'd already sworn those off years ago, if it meant he could avoid ever setting foot in an IKEA again. James had made peace with that sacrifice, and yet now here he was, down four wolves and he'd only just stepped through the door.

"Can we just turn around and go home, or would that make me a bad alpha? I'm sure Calle would be happy here, it's the land of his people. He could have a nice life here."

"Are you trying to abandon me in an IKEA?"

Calle suddenly reappeared at James's side, bumping shoulders briefly before waving a paper and pencil in front of James's face.

"I went to get us a shopping list!"

He was smiling way too happily for James to abandon him in an IKEA.

"I wasn't going to abandon you," James grumbled. He patted Calle on the back, and then used that hand to start propelling them down the arrowed pathway with grim determination. "I promise you would have been happy here."

Calle probably  _would_  have been happy there, was the weirdest thing. James wasn't sure if it was just because he liked to show off that he could pronounce all of the item names or if he really, truly enjoyed the full IKEA experience. He kept flitting around the aisle in front of them, pointing out different pieces of living room furniture and telling James what they were called and how he felt about them.

Every time James said, "Yes, it's very nice, now can we just go to the beds?" he could hear a very poorly restrained laugh from Paul.

Rich wasn't even kind enough to restrain his laughter, but James refused to turn around and glare at him, because that would probably just make him laugh more.

It felt like a lifetime of weaving through little mini-living rooms and kitchen displays, watching Calle jump from item to item like he just had to touch them all and test them out, when they finally reached the bedroom sets.

Which also happened to be where they found their three wayward wolves, each sprawled out across a different bed.

"How did you guys even- wait, does this mean I can cut through the displays?"

Paul snorted and brushed their arms together.

"No, you can't buck the system. It doesn't matter how they got here, let's just check out the beds and then we can get out of here."

He squeezed the back of James's neck soothingly and steered him towards the nearest one, which happened to have a Czech goaltender on it.

Maz beamed and scrambled over to make room for James.

"This is best one," he said. "I try them all, and this is best."

James looked over his shoulder at the twisting line of bedroom displays.

"You tried  _all_  of them?"

Maz's smile never broke. James was inclined to believe him.

"Remember, we're shopping for both a bed and mattresses," Paul said. He was already crouching on the floor next to the bed, examining its sides to see how much work it would take to attach it to another bed, because he was responsible like that.

James was too busy biting his tongue to keep from announcing that he could probably sleep on an actual bag of rocks, and so he didn't really care what kind of mattress he had.

Paul made some happy-Paulie noises and said, "Oh, Jamie, this one has storage drawers."

Craning his neck over the side of the bed, James could see that yes, it had a set of two unobtrusive drawers built into it, and Paul was just enough of a storage nerd for it to make him swoon.

"Yeah, but could you access both sets with the beds together?" Rich was standing there with his arms still crossed, smirking.

Paul's eyes narrowed, but he didn't turn around as he murmured, "We could probably find a way to just assemble the track backwards, and if they aren't on a track, then we can do whatever we want."

James nodded like his eyes hadn't already glazed over and patted Maz on the head. "Good job, buddy, this is nice."

"Hey! Aren't you going to check out the rest of your options?"

Carter and Goose were still flopped shamelessly across their own beds.

James winced. "Do I really have to lie in a bed with each of you?"

Because they really were shameless assholes, Carter waggled his eyebrows and said, "Consider it practice."

He could have sworn that it took at least two hours for them to try each bed, and that was even when they were "only restricting this to king-sized beds, come  _on_  guys, I'm not buying a bed per wolf!"

Paul insisted that it was really only forty-five minutes, but he had that strange glint in his eyes that said he was probably getting high off of home goods shopping, and when James glanced at their list, there was not only the bed frame that they'd finally settled on, but something called a HEMNES that Calle informed him was a daybed.

James scrunched up his nose.

"Why am I buying a daybed?"

It was clearly in Paul's handwriting, and the culprit himself didn't even bother looking up at James as he tested a mattress with his hand.

"Because it looks nice and you can use it when you have guests over."

"First of all, I already have a guest bed, and secondly, what guests? These guests?" He swept his arms out to refer to his pack, all of whom were now spread out across the different mattresses. "They all sleep in the same bed as me, that's why we're here in the first place, remember?"

Paul finally looked up at him, only to blink uncomprehendingly.

"But it also functions as extra seating for parties, and it has drawers for storage."

James's mother always said that the way to a happy relationship was compromise, but considering that he was pretty sure he'd already watched a couple break-up arguing over what type of mattress they should get, he decided that in the case of IKEA, the way to a happy marriage was by nodding and agreeing and getting the hell out of there as soon as possible.

"You know what, sure, fine, we'll get it. But you're putting it together."

Paul smiled serenely, and James started reminding himself that somewhere along the way he was supposed to be getting meatballs out of this.

And a bed. Beds. He was getting beds too.

Calle grabbed his hand and dragged him over to a mattress, saying, "This one is called HAUGSVÄR."

"Wow, that's super awesome," James mumbled.

Meatballs and beds.

Right.

~~~

He was hoping to steer entirely clear of the literal hell on earth that was the marketplace, because he knew he'd lose not only the entire pack but Paulie in the process, but the actual demonic entities that had formed this nightmare had made that impossible.

"James, you'll survive a walk through housewares," Paul said, but James didn't really believe him, because Paul was carefully examining a Dutch oven as he said it.

He looked down at his cart, which now somehow contained a fake fern and a canvas picture of the moon, which some comedian had seen fit to gift him.

"I'm not sure I will- Paulie, look, there's a shortcut!"

He could have sworn there was a holy glow around that shortcut, or maybe it was the sheer relief of a potential escape in sight.

But Paul just smiled and shook his head. "We still need to get bedding."

James could swear he heard his own hopes dying a horrible death, but it was probably actually the shrieking of a little boy a few feet away who really, really wanted to get a wooden train set.

It seemed likely that by going down a floor, he had also descended further into hell. There were people everywhere, and James could barely maneuver his cart through the twisting pathway – and that was when he wasn't losing his packmates left and right. After a while he just gave up and figured they'd catch up in the end.

He was actually able to weasel his way out of having to buy bedding just by asking Paul if he  _really_  wanted James to buy his linens from an IKEA.

Honestly, just the look of dawning horror on his face would have been enough, but it also served the purpose of getting Paul to put his hand over James's on the handle of the shopping cart.

"You're right, let's go," he said, making off quickly down the aisle with renewed purpose.

They still couldn't make it to the end without James's cart suddenly growing a throw pillow with a picture of a squirrel on it, a plastic lunchbox in the shape of a dog's head, and a hedgehog nightlight.

"It's called GOSIG VALP," Calle was saying as he put a stuffed beagle in the cart, "It means cuddly puppy."

James sighed, patted his arm, and reminded himself that he was almost free.

Or so he thought, until they entered the warehouse portion of their eternal torment, during which everyone decided that not only did they know exactly where the boxes were that they needed to find, but that the quickest way to find them was for everyone to scatter at once, leaving James alone with a cartful of things he didn't want in a store he didn't want to be in.

"Are you fucking kidding me," he hissed, looking up and down aisles and aisles of identical brown boxes without luck.

He gave it a good five minutes of searching before he decided that he'd given it his best shot, but IKEA had won. In a gesture of good sportsmanship, he would let it consume his loved ones forever in exchange for letting him escape to the restaurant.

By the time his pack found him, he'd already had time to pay for all of their bullshit purchases, dump it all off in the car, and come back to the food court to settle in with a double serving of meatballs with a side of waffles and jam. Whatever, he deserved it.

Paul was frowning as he came up, pushing a cart of boxes.

"You disappeared."

Yeah, he was definitely pouting.

James used his fork to smack Goose's hand away from his plate.

"No,  _you_  people disappeared, and I conceded defeat to our evil Swedish overlords and decided to get my meatballs."

Carter dropped down in the seat next to James and slumped dramatically against his shoulder, like James wouldn't recognize it as a ploy to get closer to his food.

"Calle was right, you  _are_  trying to abandon us in an IKEA!"

James speared a meatball on his fork and used it to point in the direction of the prepared foods, where Calle was happily stacking up jars of jams and packages of frozen salmon in his arms like the little stereotype he was.

"No, Calle is perfectly at home here, just like I said. The only disappointing thing for him is that he's the only person in this building who actually speaks Swedish."

They all watched as Calle piled his purchases on the checkout counter and cheerfully greeted a rather perplexed cashier in Swedish. She frowned for a moment and then tried responding in very careful French, like that might help.

"See? He's fine. Actually, if anyone was abandoned, it was me."

Paulie rolled his eyes, because romance was dead, and sat down on James's other side. He didn't even try to steal the food off James's plate, just plucked the fork right out of his hand and took a meatball for himself, like he didn't think that James had actually ordered two plates for himself (he would be dead wrong).

"But you survived, didn't you?" Paul said, like he hadn't just stolen James's meatballs. "We're all here, the beds are all paid for, you have your food. Nobody's worse for wear."

"My bank account is," James grumbled.

Paul continued on blithely, "Now all that we have to do is put it all together!"

Silence fell over the table, broken only by the sound of James slapping people's hands away from his plates.

"I have told you guys that I'm more of a supervisory builder, right?" James said slowly. "I interpret the instructions."

"You know what, I think I'm actually busy this afternoon," Goose announced. He stood up from the table, grabbing up James's plate of waffles as he did.

Carter shot to his feet next to him, nodding fervently. "Oh, yeah, that thing, we were going to do it together, right?"

He reached for the waffles, which Goose held out of his reach. "Oh, no, it's a personal thing, not that other thing, that you're thinking of. You can go help put furniture together."

"You're all helping with the furniture," Paul said firmly. "You're using it, you help with it."

Maz plucked the plate out of Goose's hands, took a waffle for himself and then handed it back to James.

"I just think that maybe Calle and Maz would be better suited to it," Carter said. "They're, y'know, European."

"I'm good at IKEA," Maz agreed with a sunshiny smile.

Goose nodded quickly. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure that Swedish school kids get tested on their ability to interpret and correctly follow IKEA instructions. Calle's probably, like, certified and everything."

"What is Calle doing?" Calle asked as he approached with his bagful of purchases.

"Assembling furniture."

"Oh! Oh, yes, I'm really good at that. Don't worry, Nealer, we'll get it all done today, you'll see."

~~~

They did not get it all done that day, and it was from thereon after a truth universally acknowledged that the pups were never, ever to be trusted with an Allen wrench.


	53. Predators: GOSIG VALP

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One fic that was originally broken down as a response to two anonymous prompts: "I feel like someone needs to dump Calle into his alpha’s lap and just say, completely deadpan “it’s a GOSIG VALP. It means cuddly puppy."" and "please let Calle sleep in a nest of IKEA plushies. the cutest, softest bed for the littlest wolf." Both of those prompts refer to the previous chapter's trip to IKEA.
> 
> This takes place at a vague time early in the 2015-16 season.
> 
> 1/31/18

Despite everyone referring to Calle and Maz as pups, it was really had more basis in habit now than in actual reality. At the age of 24, they were more than done growing as humans and were just about finishing up as wolves.

James could see the difference just in the time that he'd known them. They'd already had their adult size, but they didn't look as gawky anymore, their bodies filling out so that their paws didn't look too big for their legs. Their coats were sleeker, losing some of those last vestiges of puppy fluff. They looked bigger, stronger.

They looked like adults, basically.

James had thought Calle would take it as a compliment. After all, James  _still_  preened whenever his mom said that she thought he'd matured, and he was supposed to be an adult with a house and a real live fiancé. He'd thought that it might make Calle smile, to say, "Wow, you're like a real adult wolf now!"

He didn't really expect Calle's face to just  _drop_  like that.

"What – what do you mean?"

Calle shifted nervously, knotting his fingers in the hem of his shirt like he was actually upset about something.

James rubbed the back of his neck.

"I mean that, you know, when you're a wolf, you're all..." He waved a hand in the air. "Adult-like? Like, you know...not so small and floppy-"

"I'm not small?" Calle's eyes were way too big and blue and sad about that.

"-and your fur's not so fluffy anymore-"

" _I'm not fluffy?_ "

James had to pause at that, because Calle was staring at James with the sort of horror that James would have reserved for something like losing in the Cup Finals, or like, finding out that he was out of coffee.

There was no reason for Calle to be nearly this upset, especially when James was trying to pay him a compliment.

"No? I mean, it's not a bad thing. You look very...mature."

"Mature?" Calle repeated in a high, reedy voice.

"Um, yeah? Actually, you look a little bit like Carter, except he's more brown and also, y'know, bigger."

That one  _really_  did not have the intended effect, because Calle's face twisted up in what could only be called pained disgust.

"I look  _old_?"

"Whoa, okay bud, getting a little shrill there-"

If James had thought it was bad before, the sound that Calle made next was most definitely inhuman and unfortunately still at a pitch that James had the ability to hear.

"Oh, fuck, wow, okay, let's  _not_  with that one, eh?"

He grabbed Calle by the shoulders and tugged him in for a hug, trying not to wince at now having Calle's keening whine right up next to his ear.

"None of that now, c'mon, you're okay," he hummed, rubbing a firm hand over Calle's back and trying to figure out how the fuck they'd gotten to this point.

Calle clutched to him, curling his hands in the front of James's shirt. He quieted a little, until the whining just sounded more pathetic than ear-piercing. A sniffling nose was pressed into the collar of James's shirt, and he tried not to think about what may or may not get wiped there.

"There you go," James murmured, still rubbing Calle's back. "Can you tell me what just happened there?"

He tried to lean back so he could see Calle's face, but Calle was having none of it, gripping him tight and refusing to let him move even an inch.

In a choked voice, he whispered, "Do you think I'm not a puppy anymore?"

"Um...no? Because you're, like, 24, and also I think wolfy-you is done growing? I mean, Maz too, both my cubs are all grown up."

Those were apparently the exact wrong words to say, because the keening was back, louder than ever, and okay, fuck,  _ow_.

Wincing all the while, James grabbed the back of Calle's neck as tight as he could and shook him.

The whining abruptly cut out. When James dragged Calle back far enough that he could get a look at him, Calle's face was red and pinched and clearly distressed.

"Dude, I need you to use your words here because I don't have a fucking clue what's going on."

"Nothing's going on," Calle sniffed, wiping at his face, and oh, geeze, was he getting teary over this? James really wasn't sure he could handle tears right now, especially if he'd been the one to cause them and he had no clue what he'd done wrong.

"I think almost breaking my ear drums because I complimented you doesn't count as 'nothing.'"

Calle gave a weird little twitch and squinted at him.

"Compliment?"

"Yeah? Like, you're very mature and adult-ish. I would think that was a compliment? I mean, it's better than always getting called a little kid, right?"

Calle was looking very much like he didn't agree, but he sniffled again and said, "Yeah, of course, yeah. Sorry, I just...sorry. I'm just gonna go...yeah."

He suddenly pulled out of James's grip, turned around and walked out of James's kitchen. A door slammed a moment later, and James almost would have thought that he'd decided to go home (an amazing feat, seeing as it felt like the guys never actually left his house), except the sound came from the back of the house, and James was pretty sure that Calle had just gone to sulk in his backyard.

James stared down at his glass of water on the counter, the whole reason he'd come into the kitchen in the first place, as if maybe it could give him some answers to what the fuck was going on. He was still busy doing that when his front door slammed and Goose came plodding in with all the tender subtlety of a limping rhinoceros, shouting, "Nealer! Nealer, what did you do to the puppy?"

Well that was awfully accusatory.

"Excuse you, I didn't do anything," he said as Goose entered the kitchen. "And how the hell would you know, anyway? Did you stop in the backyard first?"

"Is that where he's hiding?" Goose glanced in the direction of the yard, like he could somehow magically see it from the other side of the house. "I could hear him whining before I even got out of my car. It sounds pathetic. And the only reason he wouldn't take that whining to you so that you could make it better for him is if you're the reason he's whining in the first place. So!"

He slapped his hands down on the counter.

"What did you do?"

James blinked at him.

"I, uh, told him he looked all grown up now? Because he does? He doesn't look so much like a puppy anymore-"

There was a harsh yelp from the direction of the backyard.

Sometimes James really, really hated werewolf hearing.

"And then he just started doing that, when I told him. I was  _trying_  to pay him a compliment, and this is the thanks I get."

Goose was wearing the look that Paulie got where he looked like if he rolled his eyes any harder he might actually strain something, but he still really, really wanted to roll his eyes. It was kind of a very specific expression for both of them to have. Maybe it was some sort of werewolf-named-Paul thing.

"Jesus Christ." Goose pinched his nose between his forefinger and thumb, looking more and more like Paulie by the second, if Paulie wasn't ginger and was also gigantic. "I should have known it was about this. Jesus fucking Christ, this is my life now."

"What?" James really didn't want to contribute to the whining, but it came out kind of petulant anyway.

"Nothing, you didn't say anything wrong. Calle's just being Calle about it. Look. Go, like, sit on the couch or something. I'll be back in a minute."

He stalked out of the room before James could say anything else. The door slammed a moment later.

"You all need to stop slamming my doors!" James called out to his empty house. Whatever, he knew they could both hear him.

He didn't have anything better to do but listen, so he took his glass of water with him to the living room and sat down on the couch like Goose had asked.

He pulled out his phone, about to text Rich to ask if he knew what "being Calle about it" meant, when he hear the back door open with even more noise than when it had been slammed. There was a clattering sound of someone bumping up against the door, and Goose was definitely hissing a steady stream of curses.

James wasn't surprised when Goose came around the corner into the living room, but he admittedly wasn't expecting him to be hauling a very miserable looking wolfed-out Calle in his arms.

Goose came to a stop in front of James, his arms visibly straining with the weight of the wolf in his arms.

"It's called GOSIG VALP," he said, completely deadpan. "It means cuddly puppy."

His eyes were wide, though, boring into James's like he was beseeching James to magically understand whatever weirdness was going on here.

Which he definitely did not. Other than a vague remembrance of Calle saying something similar when he got that stuffed beagle at IKEA, James didn't really know why Goose sounded so insistent on calling Calle a cuddly puppy-

 _"Ohhhhhh_."

Goose finally gave in and rolled his eyes. It looked like it was a relief for him to let it out.

"Yes,  _oh_. What a cute, cuddly  _puppy_  we have, Nealer."

Calle made a little grumbling noise and twisted in Goose's arms so that he could lick his cheek, just once. Goose made a strained noise like he really wished that Calle hadn't, probably because it was hard enough holding a full grown wolf without it trying to move around in your arms.

"A puppy. Oh, yeah, of course, of course Calle's our puppy, what else would he be?"

The tip of Calle's tail started wagging, and then he was twisting around in Goose's arms, straining out in James's direction like he wanted to get closer to him and lick him too. Goose was all too pleased to drop him off in James's lap, and he looked almost gleeful at James's wheeze as Calle knocked the air out of him.

Calle, for his part, was making himself comfortable in James's lap, licking under his chin and rubbing his face along James's chest and neck. When he'd gotten his breath back, James wrapped an arm around his side and used his other hand to scratch behind Calle's ears.

"Of course you're my pup," James said. Calle squirmed even more at that, so apparently James had finally found the right thing to say.

 _Dude, what the fuck?_  he mouthed at Goose, petting Calle all the while.

Goose just rolled his eyes again – it really had to be a Paul thing – and shook his head.

"Calle is just  _really happy_  to be our  _puppy_ ," he said. It was the same deadpan as before, but louder, and so incredibly fake that Calle really shouldn't have been so excited by it.

"Um...yeah? I mean, yeah, of course."

Fuck, but James's pack had problems.

"I'm going to go raid your fridge," Goose announced, and he really didn't need to be nearly shouting that.

Actually, James really needed to stop being so blasé about his teammates going through his fridge. He knew for a fact that they all owned their own fridges and, presumably, the food within them. Like, he didn't show up at their houses and just start raiding the cupboards.

By the time he thought to say that, Goose had already left the room. James could have said something, but Goose would pretend not to hear it anyway, because he was a dick like that.

Instead, James finally texted Rich, using the hand that wasn't stuck petting the blissed out wolf in his lap.

_wtf is calles thing about being a puppy?_

Rich just sent back a laughing face and a puppy emoji, because James's pack continued to be assholes.

~~~

"Paulie. Paulie, I'm so confused," James hissed.

The wolves could all probably hear him anyways, but, like. He was whispering. It was only polite that they pretend they couldn't hear him talking about them.

Paulie sounded like he was trying to smother a laugh, because his time with James's pack had obviously affected him for the worse.

"I really don't know what to say, Jamie. I think he just really likes the idea of being your cub. It makes him feel special."

"But like, of course he's special. All my wolves are special! Paulie, do you not feel special?"

Okay, now Paul was definitely laughing at him.

"You make me feel very special," Paul said, and okay, James knew what that voice was supposed to mean.

"Not like  _that_ ," he hissed. "But I mean, they have to know I care about them, right?"

"I'm sure they all know. Calle's just...had a hard time. Things were rough for him as a cub when he first came over, and you're the first real alpha here who's welcomed him. He probably just doesn't want to feel like he's lost it when he only just got it."

"Lost it? Lost what? What is he losing? I seriously just said his fur's changed and he acted like I stepped on his tail and laughed about it."

"Lost out on his chance to have his alpha pay special attention to him, probably. That's what most cubs get. Adults are treated with more equanimity."

"The 'adults' in this pack sleep in my bed every night, Paulie, I don't think there's much change when you grow up."

He could hear the smile in Paul's voice now. "I think that's just part of what makes your pack special, Jamie," Paul said, because he was a sap like that. "Just give Calle some time, let him have the word if it makes him happy. He'll get over it after a while. I don't think you really have anything to worry about."

"Paulie. Paulie, he's sleeping in a pile of stuffed animals from IKEA."

"...What?"

"Paulie. There is a pile of stuffed animals from IKEA on my bed at this exact moment, and there is a 24 year old wolf sleeping in the middle of it. I only bought one of those for him, so either he went back to buy more or he just brought these all from his place and either way, they are in the middle of my bed, and he's laying on top of them, and Paulie, that's a lot of stuffed animals for a hockey player to have. I'm kind of worried about his rep, now, there's no getting over that weirdness if this gets out to the team. Paulie? Paulie, is this normal? Paulie, there's a stuffed shark in there, do you think that means he misses you?"

Paul was quite for a very long time, and then he gave a very, very long sigh.

In a strangely ominous voice, he muttered, "Whatever you do, just don't let him find out about Dave and Buster's."


	54. Predators: The Tale of Purple Puppy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompted: I know a lot of dogs who have a favorite lovey that they inevitably rip to shreds and then look miserable about. Do the werewolves ever drop decapitated toys in front of Nealer and whine until he sews the bits back together like a good wolf dad?
> 
> 2/4/18

Nobody was surprised that Calle had amassed quite the collection of dog toys and stuffed animals, at least not after his haul from IKEA. James sometimes questioned why they all had to live at his house, but after a while having to kick toys out of the way just to walk through his own house felt kind of normal.  Once in a while he could actually bribe Calle into putting them all away properly, too.

(He’d actually bought a basket to store all the toys in, but he had to keep it in his bedroom so that any non-wolf guests didn’t question why he happened to have a basket of well-loved dog toys in the middle of his living room.)

Most of the other guys didn’t really play with the toys. Rich didn’t bother with anything other than cow bones, proudly calling himself “a traditionalist.”  Goose liked to steal Calle’s toys sometimes, but that was usually either to tease him or to entice someone into a game of tug-of-war. Maz had a fixation on tennis balls and always kept a few in his bag, but that was as much of a goalie thing as it was a wolf thing – work on your catching coordination one minute and play fetch the next.

Carter kept his tennis balls for strictly goalie-only purposes.  But he did have one toy, exactly one toy, which he loved more than anything else in the world.

And that toy was a particularly mangy looking purple puppy.  Well, James figured it was probably intended to be a puppy. It was like a foot long, and was made of this weirdly textured material like it had a bunch of nubby little hairs on it, and it had a big, toothy smile stitched to what was left of its face.

Purple Puppy was one of the best kept secrets in the pack, probably because it took James over six months of this whole alpha-thing to figure out that it actually existed.  And once he noticed Purple Puppy, he couldn’t un-notice it.

It showed up in the bottom of Carter’s suitcase on the road, and it somehow appeared in James’s bedroom during every full moon (and in his bed before too long, just like everything else, it seemed).  And Carter would just about try to kill anyone who attempted to take Purple Puppy away from him.  One time, Calle had gone over to sniff it, and Carter had come sprinting from the other end of the yard, growling and ready to pounce until Calle scrambled out of the way at the last second.

The rest of the pack didn’t seem too surprised or bothered by Carter’s behavior.

“It’s a goalie thing,” Rich had said with a shrug, “I’ve seen weirder.”

“I came from a pack with two goalies,” Goose agreed, “This is like, as normal as they get.  He doesn’t even hoard pucks.”

James was still learning about the finer intricacies of werewolf life, but if nobody else thought it was weird for a nearly thirty year old man to be overly attached to a ratty dog toy, then James wasn’t going to pay it much mind, either.

Purple Puppy just became yet another part of his strange new life as the alpha of a pack of werewolves, up until the day that he developed a hole.

Well, a bigger hole than usual.  Purple Puppy was in a perpetual state of Having a Hole. At any given time, it would have a split seam or some stuffing peeking through where teeth had grabbed it too hard. Someone had stitched it back together before using thick black thread, but new holes would open up right next to the old ones.  Whatever squeaker it had once had was long since crushed. Its ears had clearly both been ripped off and then sewn back on; one of them had been sewn directly into the side of Purple Puppy’s face, giving it a perpetually lopsided look.  When the guys teased him about it, Carter just sniffed and said that “his scars give him character.”

It wasn’t unusual for Purple Puppy to have a hole. What  _was_  unusual was for him to be leaking stuffing so badly that his head was half-deflated and he was notably limp in the middle.

What was the most unusual was for Carter to come slinking up to James, ears pinned back, tail tucked between his legs, whining low in his throat as he pressed Purple Puppy up against James’s knees.  After a moment of this without James reacting, he then ever so gently placed the damp toy in James’s lap and nosed it towards him with the tiniest of hopeful tail wags.

James stared at Purple Puppy.  Purple Puppy smiled back, because he couldn’t do anything else.  It was kind of morbid, given the giant hole in the back of his head.

“Oh, buddy,” James said, meeting Carter’s actual sad puppy eyes.  “I don’t…you want me to fix this?”

Carter whined again, even more pathetic than before. James sighed and rubbed a hand over the top of his head.

“Hutts, I don’t know how to sew.  I don’t own a sewing kit.  Shit, I don’t even think I have one of those little ones they give you in a hotel room.”

The whining only got louder, Carter pressing his face firmly into James’s lap and nosing the toy closer to him as he did, like that would somehow convince James to remember that he actually was capable of sewing and was going to do so right now.

James was sorely tempted to suggest that maybe they just let Purple Puppy move on to the great garbage dump in the sky and get a new toy, but he knew exactly how poorly that one would go over.

“Look, someone sewed it last time.  Maybe we could just ask them again?”

Now Carter’s whining took on a particularly frantic and miserable quality, and he rubbed his face against James’s lap like he was trying to hide it.  Whoever had sewn the puppy the last time, James got the distinct impression that it wasn’t Carter and that for whatever reason, he couldn’t ask that person for help again.

“Buddy, I don’t know what to tell you.  Even Paulie isn’t any good at sewing, or I’d ask him for help.  Maybe we can like…look it up online?  Maybe you could try doing it yourself?”

He hadn’t thought it was possible to receive such an offended expression from a wolf, and yet here he was, getting stared at like he’d just suggested they go slap Carter’s mother with a trout to see if that fixed anything.

Actually, Carter’s mom might be of some help.

“Can we maybe just like ship it to your mom?” James asked hopefully.

If wolves shouldn’t be able to look offended, then they certainly shouldn’t be able to look that condescending.

“God, it was just a suggestion.  I really don’t know what you expect me to do here.”

Carter continued whining, like that had ever solved anything (James knew from experience that it hadn’t).

James sighed.

“I guess I’ll, like, try to figure it out?”

The way that Carter licked his hand in thanks shouldn’t have been nearly that cute, but being licked by his teammates was now just one of many strange things that made up the new normal of James’s life.

This was how James found himself as the new owner of a travel sewing kit and a spool of black thread matching the kind that had already been used to stitch Purple Puppy back together.  It was thicker than normal sewing thread, but James figured it might hold up better than the thread that came with his kit.

_did u kno a thimble isnt just a monopoly piece?_  he texted Rich.

Rich just replied with a series of laughing emojis, because he was a dick.

YouTube had never steered James wrong before, but even tutorials couldn’t keep him from sticking himself with the needle at least three times, and that was just so he could get it threaded.  He didn’t remember things being so hard in his high school home economics class, but then again, he was pretty sure he’d almost failed that class anyway.  This was probably why.

Sewing wasn’t so hard, if you didn’t care about things looking pretty. There were way too many ways to do it, and James started making some sort of awful amalgamation of half-stitches in all different directions before he realized that his goal was to use the thread to close up the holes and keep all of the hastily-reapplied stuffing inside, not to make it look neat.  After that, sewing seemed so much easier (even if he did keep sticking himself with the needle).

It was finishing it off that was the tricky part. He didn’t realize how hard it could be to tie a goddamn knot in some thread until he noticed with a sense of foreboding that there were a  _lot_  of YouTube tutorials dedicated to it.  Every time he tried to do it, his knots ended up way too high up the thread, and then the stitches started to gap, and so he tried to knot it again, but that would just get caught up on the other knot and make it an even  _bigger_  knot.  And most of the tutorials assumed he could see both sides of the fabric, which he couldn’t, because he was stitching a stuffed dog-thing that really had no business being stitched.

But eventually, after much cursing and some actual blood-shed on James’s part, Purple Puppy was, once again, mostly intact. Or at least most of its stuffing was back on the inside.  James was counting it as a success.

Carter seemed to think so, given how he snatched up Purple Puppy as soon as he saw it and clutched it to his chest, which was really a strange image when he was human.  Carter ran his fingers over the stitches far more gently than the situation entailed, and then he looked up at James with the brightest, happiest grin that James had ever seen on his face.  It took all of a second before Carter had James pinned in a hug, Purple Puppy crushed between them.

“Thank you,” Carter whispered roughly against his shoulder, in the voice that most people would use to thank someone who had just donated them a kidney.

James sighed and patted him on the back. Somehow, he wasn’t even really fazed anymore.

“It’s no problem, buddy.  What are alphas for, if not to sew up your dog toys?”

James felt that it was a credit to his growth as an individual that he didn’t even blink when Carter corrected him in an utterly serious voice, “Wolf toys.”

“Wolf toys.  Right.  And who stitched it up last time, if it wasn’t you?”

Carter’s eyes went wide for a moment, and then he was sprinting for the backyard, flinging his shirt in James’s face as he went. By the time James freed himself from it and made his way to the back door, Carter was already running across the yard in his wolf form, happily shaking Purple Puppy for all it was worth.

Well.  That was probably all of the answer he was going to get on that.

~~~

James had mostly forgotten about his question until a few weeks later on the team plane, when he happened to notice Pekka frowning as he tried to sew a button back onto his coat.

“Oh hey, you can sew?” he asked.  He’d been trying to practice, figuring that he’d probably have to sew up someone’s toys again, given how many Calle had.  And besides, it wasn’t a bad skill to have.  His mom would be so impressed.

(Plus, it was kind of cool practicing a skill that he knew Paulie wasn’t any good at – Paulie said that the last time he tried to sew something, he sewed his socks shut.  It was nice to be the semi-competent adult for once.)

He’d been practicing with buttons, too, figuring that it was a good life skill to know how to put the buttons back on your clothes. That was half the point of a travel sewing kit in the first place, apparently.  So far, he could sew the button down so that it for sure wasn’t falling off, but it was also usually either so tight that you couldn’t use it, or so loose that it flopped around pathetically.  He was still working on finding a happy medium.

But Pekka seemed to be pretty good at it, or at least serviceable enough that he wasn’t pricking himself every twenty seconds like James.

Pekka smiled briefly when he looked up at James, a little abashed.

“Just a little.  Just enough to get by.”

“Oh, man, I bet you’re still better off than me.  I just started trying to learn a few weeks ago and all I keep doing is sticking myself with the needle.”

Pekka laughed.

“That’s what Hutts does,” he said, casting a fond smile at Carter, who was passed out against the window in the seat next to Pekka. “He’s so bad at it.  One time, I found him trying to fix this dog toy – it belonged to his neighbor’s dog, and for some reason he promised the little girl next door that he’d fixed the toy for her.  But he can’t sew at all – the ear was coming out of the side of the face, and he had cuts all over his fingers because he can’t hold the needle correctly.  I told him I would do it, just so he wouldn’t bleed all over it before handing it back to that kid.”

“You have to be shitting me.”

Pekka frowned at that, but then he smiled again, good-natured as always and entirely missing the reason behind James’s exasperation.

“No, really, he had to put antiseptic on all his cuts.  He was like a pincushion.”

James eyed Carter, still asleep in his seat, and considered how long it would take before he just “happened” to roll over so he was laying with his head on Pekka’s shoulder.

“No, that part I believe,” he muttered.

Later, he texted Rich,  _if someone fixes ur dog toy 4 u who isnt ur mom or ur alpha is that lik a wolfy version of agreein to marry u???_

Rich responded with a series of laughing emojis.

James was inclined to take that as a “yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The joke about Paul not being able to sew is from [this](https://swedishgoaliemafia.tumblr.com/post/65668932215/thisisahockeyblog-puckyouintheglass-he-cooks). Idk how he is at sewing irl and good for him for trying, but he really looks like he’s going to end up sewing his sock closed here and I went with it.
> 
> You can check out the end of the [original posting](https://swedishgoaliemafia.tumblr.com/post/170486343314) to see the real Purple Puppy.


	55. Predators: Baths

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for flufflybunnypants and an anon based on [these](https://swedishgoaliemafia.tumblr.com/post/171641761414) [posts](https://swedishgoaliemafia.tumblr.com/post/171645108074) joking about drunk Nealer griping about having to give baths to his packmates when they are fully capable of shifting and bathing themselves. I'd explain but honestly it's just easier to read the posts.
> 
> This takes place in some nebulous time in the 2016-17 season when all of these guys were on the team at the same time, so possibly in pre/postseason, idk, it doesn't really matter.
> 
> 3/7/18

The normal response when your teammates spill a tray of drinks on themselves is typically to point and laugh and never let them forget it.

The normal response was not to heave a great sigh and mutter, “I do not have to give that man a bath,” into your beer.  Of course, people rarely accused Nealer of exhibiting normal behavior when he was sober, let alone when he was drunk.

PK liked to think he was a pretty stand-up guy, and so he limited his reaction to clapping a hand on Nealer’s shoulder (inadvertently nearly knocking him over) and saying, “Sorry, what was that, buddy?”

Nealer looked surprised, like he hadn’t known that PK had heard him.

“Baths,” he said louder. He wobbled a little under PK’s hand, or maybe it was PK who was wobbling.  He wasn’t really sure, but he also didn’t really care.  To be fair, nobody seemed to care about much of anything after the fourth beer.  Also, the shots.

God, he loved his teammates. Nashville was great.

Speaking of, the guys were currently giving Juuse an appropriate amount of chirping for having spilled their drinks not only on himself but also on Miikka. Juuse was just giving everyone a bashful little smile and muttering apologies while trying to clean up the mess with a few cocktail napkins and failing miserably. He was doing better than Miikka, who was whining something in Finnish at Pekka, who looked entirely unwilling to come to his aid.

PK stumbled back a step when Nealer was suddenly leaning heavily against his side, his arm thrown over PK’s shoulders.

“I’ll give that one a bath,” Nealer said, pointing a wavering finger in Juuse’s general direction. “But I’m only bathing one of them. You guys have to take care of the other one.”

“I’m sorry, what was that?” Smitty called out loudly, drawing everyone’s attention over to them. “You’re going to do what?”

Nealer sighed dramatically.  He made a show of rolling his eyes, but then started listing against PK’s side again, probably because he moved his whole head when he did it.

“ _Baths_ ,” he enunciated, like they were all a little slow. “I’ll give one of them a bath, but you guys have to do the other one.  It’s only fair.”

 A few of the guys laughed or jeered, because they weren’t nearly as kind as PK. Roman was trying and failing to suppress a smirk as he said, “Nealer, I think they can clean themselves just fine.”

This time when Nealer rolled his eyes he just gave in and dropped his head onto PK’s shoulder.  His tone, however, was incredibly dry for someone who had drunk so much in the past two hours, when he said, “Really?  You think that?”

He waved a loose hand in the direction of the Finns.

Juuse was ever-so-gently pressing a cocktail napkin against the front of Miikka’s sodden shirt.  It stuck, seeing as Miikka was literally dripping beer.  That made Juuse smile delightedly, and he pressed another one next to it.

“You know what, he might have a point,” PK muttered.

Nealer leaned heavily against his side, so PK knew he was rolling his eyes again. “Of course I have a point.  I have experience in this.  I am an  _expert_.”

“At what?  Giving your teammates baths?”

Nealer threw back the rest of his beer like it was a shot, nearly toppling both himself and PK in the process.  When he came up for air again, he stared at PK with the knowing eyes of a grizzled veteran.

“Don’t let your goalies swim in the swamp, man.  I’m telling you, nothing good ever comes from swamp goalies.”

PK took a moment to consider Pricey in a swamp, lurking under the green water in full gear, just his eyes and the top of his mask visible, and decided that he had to agree.  Swamp goalies sounded terrifying.

Their teammates were now trying to strip Miikka of his shirt, mostly because somebody got the idea that they could wring it out over a glass to save some of the beer.  Juuse fluttered around them, pressing cocktail napkins against random people with the type of nervous concern only shown by the extremely hammered.

Yeah.  Definitely didn’t want to put that kid in a swamp.  There weren’t nearly enough napkins for that.


	56. Paulie/Nealer, Convalescence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some people were asking about if Nealer looked after Paul when his ankle was healing in the summer of 2017, to which I said he'd probably start trying to slowly hobble away on crutches to escape Nealer's attention, and then anonymous prompted: Lmao i love the image of Paulie slowly crutching away from Nealer, trying to escape his mother-henning and insisting he's fine. He can't get away, but he tries to demonstrate he's totally fine because he knows Nealer worries.
> 
> 3/19/18

“James, I’m fine.”

“No, if you were fine, you wouldn’t need crutches. You’re on crutches, so you’re not fine, and also the doctor said that you shouldn’t be trying to run on crutches but you look like you’re attempting a brisk walk and Paulie, she told you that was bad.  You can’t walk briskly with crutches, Paulie.”

“It’s obviously not very brisk if you’re still following me.”

“I’m sorry, what was that? ‘Thank you James for being a loving husband who cares about my crotchety old ass even when I  _very unfairly_  treat you like a nag when you’re just trying to look out for my best interest’? Oh, you’re welcome Paulie, I only do it out of love for you, because I care about you and want you to get better, even though you’re doing everything in your power to ignore what the doctor said and get yourself hurt again.”

“It’s like I don’t even need to be here, you’re doing such a good job on your own.”

“‘Oh, no, James, I wouldn’t be pissy with you, not with the man who helps me up and down the stairs and lets me whine at him about how much I wish I could shift and helps me scratch the gross smelly skin under my cast. That would be a really dick move, and I would never do that to the man I love.’“

“I’m not  _being pissy-”_

“‘I’m sorry I’m being such a little bitch, James, you don’t deserve that, not after all of the time and effort you’ve put into caring for me in my convalescence.’“

“Look, if I say I’m sorry, will you give it a rest?”

“Will you sit your ass down and stop trying to escape for at least two hours?”

“…”

“What’s that? ‘Oh, James, I’m too much of a rugged ginger mountain wolf to ever let somebody take care of me in my time of need, even though that time you sprained your ankle I acted like you’d been shot, because caring for your husband is only cool when  _I_ do it…’“

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ^^^ It pretty much just carries on like that, ad infinitum.


	57. Sharks/Predators: Meeting the Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a composite based off of two anonymous prompts: "Does the San Jose pack realize that Paulie is mated and does he tell them about James?" and "Does Tomas Hertl ever meet Nealer’s pack? Does he get drawn into their shenanigans happily? Does Nealer look at Paulie with his “I want to adopt the whole NHL” look? Does Tomas try to give Nealer the shovel talk because he’s gotten really really really fond of Paulie, who knows when Tomas needs hugs and lets him run around behind his house and sometimes slips a new drag rope into his duffle for road trips because he’s secretly a soft touch?"
> 
> This got...very far removed from any of those things. This takes place around the Sharks-Preds game in San Jose on October 28th, 2015. There was a full moon on the 27th. The Barracuda were also at home during this time period so Dell and Karlsson make appearances (they were with the Barracuda at the time).
> 
> Originally posted in four parts from 2/3/18-3/25/18.

It wasn’t like Paul was trying to keep James and his pack a secret.  To be honest, he’d expected someone to comment on his scent a long time ago.  He knew that he didn’t smell mated – he never would, seeing as James was a human, no matter how much they both wished he could – but when he came into San Jose after having just spent over a week with James and his pack, he knew he had to smell like  _something_.

At the very least, he had thought that one of the wolves in San Jose would have remarked that Paul smelled like a whole lot of wolves, even if they thought that it was his family pack back in Minnesota.

But nobody said anything, and then it just kind of…never came up.

He didn’t spend as much time with his pack as James did with his, but then, it was only a certain type of pack that spent as much time together as Nashville’s did.  But they were together often enough that he was pretty sure that someone must have clued into the fact that Paul was always checking for messages on his phone, or stepping out of the room to take a phone call, or showed up late on pack nights because he had to finish his Skype call with James first.  It wasn’t like he was subtle about it.

But apparently even the obvious wasn’t blatant enough for his new pack, probably because it didn’t actually slap them in the face.

So when everyone was over at Paul’s house making plans for their first full moon of the regular season, which just happened to fall the day before Nashville played in San Jose and therefore meant that the Predators would be in town for the full moon, Paul didn’t really think before asking, “You guys don’t mind my mate’s pack joining us for the full moon, right?”

You could have heard a pin drop, except that Deller somehow managed to fall off of the couch in his surprise, and two hundred pounds of goalie crashing to the floor was rarely quiet.

Melker, at least, tried to help Deller up, because the other three were too busy staring at Paul with varying levels of surprise to do so.

“I’m sorry, what?” Jonesy asked.

At the same time, Tomas leaned towards Paul with wide eyes and hissed, “Paulie!  Do you have secret girlfriend keep hide in house?”

His eyes darted around the room, like he might be able to spot some sort of trap door, or a hidden woman might just come falling from the ceiling.

Paul stared.

“I’m not even sure I want to dignify that with a response.”

Logan rolled his eyes and smacked Tomas on the back of the head.

“If he had a secret girlfriend, you would have smelled her by now.”

Paul made a face.  “Actually, I’m more offended that he thinks I’d keep someone captive in my house.”

“He has money on it.”

Everyone slowly turned to look at Martin, who seemed to be getting over his surprise quite well.

He shrugged.

“It’s true.  In the team pool, he has ‘secret captive girlfriend,’ and Burnzie has ‘secret not-captive girlfriend.’”

Logan grumbled something about not being invited to participate in a pool, but Paul was busy asking, “Wait, they have a  _betting pool_  on my love life?”

Then he turned to Tomas and added, “And  _you_ , the person who spends more time than anyone on the team at my house, bet that I have a  _secret captive girlfriend_?”

Tomas blushed, but smiled.  

“I throw them off your scent?” he hedged slowly. For good measure, he waggled his fingers in the air, quietly cheering, “Yaaaaay,” for his own accomplishments.

Paul closed his eyes and took a series of very deep breaths.  They weren’t as calming as they should have been, because he could clearly hear Logan hissing at Jonesy about not inviting him to get in on the pool, and Jonesy replying that he wasn’t a part of it, he just knew about it, because of  _course_  he did.

It was Melker who finally dragged them back to the topic at hand, asking, “So…you have a mate?”

The others finally shut up at that, looking at Paul with expressions that were far too critical and scrutinizing for a group of guys who apparently thought there was nothing wrong with betting on his love life or theorizing that he kept people captive in his home.

“Yes?  I kind of thought you were all aware by now.  I mean, I must have smelled like him and his pack when I got here, and you have to know that I’m always calling him to say goodnight if we don’t just Skype each other before bed…”

“I thought you were just, like, creepy-close with your parents.” Logan shrugged, sounding far too casual about the whole thing.

“Or with James Neal,” Deller laughed. When the others gave him incredulous looks, he said, “What, you guys don’t remember all the media back when they were in Pittsburgh about how close they were? Paulie, like, made breakfast for the guy every day.”

“Yeah, but Paulie also feeds Tomas at least once a day,” Logan countered.

Tomas beamed like this was something to be proud of.

Apparently they had completely forgotten that Paul was in the room, because Deller leaned in towards Logan and said in a low voice, “Wait, what if Neal is a wolf?”

Logan scoffed and rolled his eyes.  “No way.  I played with him the year I went to the All-Star Game, and trust me, there were a lot of wolves on that team, but he was not one of them.”

“He smells like a wolf,” Jonesy interjected, crossing his arms and leaning back against the couch.  Paul barely resisted telling him to get his feet off the coffee table, and only because he wanted to see how long it would take them all to put things together without his interruption.

“Fuck you, no he doesn’t,” Logan said, while Melker frowned and asked, “When did you sniff James Neal?”

Martin reached over to ruffle Melker’s hair – something he didn’t seem too pleased about, but allowed – while saying, “He does smell like a wolf, or at least one who’s trying to cover it up by wearing a bottle of Listerine.  I noticed it last season when we played the Preds.”

“And what, you spend a lot of time sniffing your opponents?”

All Logan got in return for that was a shrug and a casual, “I notice things.”

They all knew that they weren’t going to question the mystical wisdom of their goaltender, no matter how much they thought he was full of shit.  Paul could practically hear Flower’s voice in his head, chanting that it was bad luck to question your goalie.  Of course, he always said that when he wanted to get his way or have the final word on something, but the convention still stood, and everyone took Jonesy at his word.

Deller was evidently making a bid to join Jamie’s fever dream of a “werewolf detective agency,” because he was getting really into trying to determine if Jamie was a werewolf or not.

“So we know for a fact that in early 2014, James Neal wasn’t a werewolf,” he said, “And we know that as of last season, about a year later, he smelled like a wolf that was trying to cover it up.  Which means…”

“Someone learn to make werewolves!” Tomas shouted, jumping to his feet in excitement.

Logan scoffed. “That’s not how biology works.”

“Did you pass biology?” The best part about Melker’s question was that he both looked and sounded entirely sincere in his curiosity.

The mortally offended look that Logan shot him only made it better.

“Even if Cooch failed biology, he got that part right,” Deller said. “Because you can’t turn a human into a werewolf.  But, theoretically, if you were to  _bite_  a human, which you would do if you were trying to make them your  _mate_ , then yes, they might start to smell like you.”

Because apparently goaltenders were the only truly insightful werewolves, when Deller looked meaningfully in Paul’s direction, Jonesy was the only one who didn’t blink in confusion or, in Tomas’s case, peek behind Paul just to make sure that there wasn’t someone behind him who Deller was actually trying to point out.

Logan was the first to finally piece it together. “Wait, are you seriously suggesting that Paul is  _actually_  mated to James Neal?”

“Do you have any better suggestions?” Deller asked.

Tomas raised his hand.

Logan narrowed his eyes at him.

“If you say ‘secret captive girlfriend’ I swear to God I’m going to bite you.  And then I’m going to unravel all of your ropes.”

The hand went back down.

“I know this is a novel idea, but maybe you could all just ask me?” Paul interjected.

Five sets of eyes turned to stare at him.

“To answer your question, which I could have just done right from the start if you’d let me, yes, I really am mated to James Neal.”

Three hands shot up.  

“Yes, he really is human.”

The other two hands went up.

“ _Yes_ , he really knows that I’m a werewolf.”

Everyone’s hands went down.

Paul told himself that it wouldn’t be healthy to keep rolling his eyes so hard, and aspired to stop.

Martin’s hand went back up, because James wasn’t the only one whose pack of allegedly adult NHL players turned out to really be overgrown ten year olds.

“You said that your mate had a pack?” he asked.

Paul nodded.  “Yes, he does.”

All of the hands went up.

It was a very, very long night.

~~~

All in all, the pack took the revelations pretty well.  After they got over their initial questions – how did a relationship with a human work? How did Paul stand to be so far away from his mate? How did  _James Neal_ become the  _alpha_  of the Nashville pack and also wait wasn’t that supposed to be Shea Weber? – things went pretty smoothly.

He made them all swear on pain of death not to tell anyone outside of the pack about James’s status as alpha, but it really wasn’t a pack meeting if nobody made any death threats.  It was probably Paul’s turn to do it anyway.

They had no problems with James’s pack joining them for the full moon.  Actually, once everything had been explained, it appeared that they were more offended that Paul might have tried to keep it a secret in the first place.

“Of course they are welcome,” Melker said, frowning. “If the alpha is your mate, then isn’t his pack ours too?”

The others all nodded.

“Yeah, dude, seriously,” Logan said, “You didn’t have to try to keep that from us.  That’s like trying to keep your  _family_  a secret.”

Paul really wasn’t moved.

“Nothing was a secret.  I was pretty obvious about it.  I honestly thought you all would have put it together by now.”

“You never talk about your personal life!” Logan protested. “Why do you think the guys are betting on it?  It’s because nobody knows!”

Paul raised an eyebrow.

“Do you make a habit of discussing your gay romances in front of your professional hockey team?”

The way that Logan blushed was interesting, but not what they were there to discuss; Paul filed it away for later.

Tomas was pouting.

“Paulie, you don’t think team supports you?  Team  _love_  to hear about wolf boyfriend!”

Then his eyes went wide in a manner that was usually reserved for plush cartoon characters.  Before Paul could even being to feel an incoming sense of foreboding, he had an armful of Czech werewolf.

“Paulie!  Paulie, I have  _so many_  new wolf boyfriends!”

So yeah.  His pack took the news pretty well.

~~~

Logan still made a point of pulling him aside later in the kitchen.

“Seriously, man,” he said quietly, eyes darting to where the others were wrestling for the remote in the living room.  “About the whole – the whole boyfriend thing.”

“The gay thing?” Paul asked with a raised eyebrow.

Logan’s flush came back in force.

“Yeah.  That. I just want to make sure you know that the guys would all be cool with it, if you wanted to tell them.  The team, I mean.  I know you’re new, and you might want to lay low because you don’t know what everyone’s like, but I mean it.  Tommy might be our You Can Play guy, but the whole team would back you up.  I think they’d all be really happy for you.

“And if they weren’t,” he continued calmly, “We would eat them for you.”

Paul was glad he wasn’t drinking anything, or he probably would have choked on it.

“I’m sorry, what?”

Logan shrugged. “You’re our pack.  We’re not letting anyone fuck with you, even if they’re our teammate.  Though to be fair, if someone tried to fuck with you, we’d have to get to them before Jumbo and Pavs did.”

When Paul quirked an eyebrow, he smirked a little and said, “If you haven’t figured it out yet, you’re pretty popular with the guys. I think you’d have a hard time finding someone in that locker room who wouldn’t want to rip a piece off of someone who tried to give you a hard time.”

That one had Paul blinking in surprise.

“Oh,” he said quietly.  He liked his new teammates, and he hadn’t gotten any impression that the others might not like him in return, but it was another thing entirely to have it laid out for him by someone else – someone who was respected in their locker room and had a hell of a lot more clout with the team.

Logan really did smile now.  “You didn’t notice that one, eh?”

“No, I…I guess not.”

“Yeah, well.” Logan looked away, back towards the pack in the other room. When he turned back to Paul, he clapped a hand on his shoulder.  “You’re a pretty likeable guy, Paulie.  Whatever you do and don’t want to tell the team, they’re ready for it.  And…thank you for trusting us with your pack.”

He said the last part quietly, averting his eyes again, but somehow, that was what made Paul believe that his words were sincere. And maybe they meant more than Logan or any of the others would let on.

“Yeah, of course.  I mean, we’re pack, right?”  Steeling himself, Paul added, “Werewolf boyfriends?”

From the other room, there was a loud chorus of, “Werewolf boyfriends!”

Logan laughed and nodded.

Maybe, Paul considered, their packs were going to get along a little  _too_ well.

~~~

Paul wouldn’t deny he was excited the day of the full moon.  Of course, it had less to do with the moon itself and more to do with James’s impending visit.  The Predators had flown in the night before, but a team dinner had kept James from sneaking away to see Paul.  The morning of the full moon, the Predators had the day off, but the Sharks still had to practice.

Apparently Paul’s excitement was a little more distracting than he would have liked, because Eddie all but plastered him up against the boards with a shout of, “Look alive, Paulie!”

Logan, who was skating by, didn’t even have the good grace to try to pretend that he wasn’t laughing at Paul’s expense.

“You were pretty spacey out there today,” Joe said once they were all back in the dressing room.  “Something going on?”

Paul did his best not to wince.  That wasn’t exactly what he wanted to hear, not when he was still pretty new to the team.  Not when he was apparently so obvious that all of his teammates were able to pick up on it.

“Sorry,” he told his stall, refusing to make eye contact and telling himself it was all in the name of getting his gear off.  “I just, uh.  Have something on my mind.”

Joe clapped him on the shoulder a little too firmly. He had already stripped down to his compression shorts, and as per usual felt like that was a good place to stop and go try to counsel his teammates.

“Well, you’re in luck.  We here at the Sharks offer free therapy in the form of this dressing room.”

“And if you’d like more discretion, Burnzie takes confession in the showers,” Tommy added.

Wardo made a choking noise and started coughing loudly, but aside from him, literally nobody seemed to think that this was a strange thing to say.  Actually, the way that Burnzie smiled without an ounce of irony and said, “Everything that goes on in those showers stays in the showers,” Paul was actually kind of inclined to believe that they were all sincerely telling the truth.

He didn’t really want to think about what a shower confessional entailed, and so he cleared his throat, feeling a little too much kinship with Wardo.

“That’s, uh, that’s a really nice offer, but I think I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?” Joe rubbed his shoulder again, maybe a little too friendly for two guys who were half-naked and both in happily committed relationships.

And then it occurred to Paul that, well, his teammates apparently really didn’t know that.  Not that he thought they would try to proposition him for some sort of strange sexual healing in the showers just because they thought he was single (or that they would try to proposition him at all, hopefully).  But Logan’s words from the other night stuck in his head all the same. His teammates had been nothing but welcoming to him, and here he was, ready to brush off and explain away his excitement over his mate – his  _fiancé_  – coming to town to avoid letting them know that he was gay.

He’d been doing it all his life.  After all, nobody on the Penguins but Brooks and Borts had ever known about his relationship with James, and that was because they were his packmates.  Paul had taken well over a year to tell his own family members that he was dating James, and even then he’d only finally admitted to it because by that point he and James were mates and he’d figured they’d have to find out eventually.

It wasn’t like he wanted to go run out and tell the media that he was ready to be the first openly gay hockey player – and drag James along for the ride, of course.  He had no interest in that kind of public attention and scrutiny.  But for Christ’s sake, he was  _engaged_.  James had taken him home over the summer so that they could tell his parents and James’s mother had pulled Paul into the tightest hug of his life and told him how happy she was that he was joining their family.  There was a difference between being discreet and trying to keep one of the biggest parts of his life jammed into a rapidly shrinking closet.

With his teammates all staring at him, faces way too sincere and open for a bunch of asshole hockey players, and with Logan’s words echoing in his head, Paul started to think, why not tell them?  Why not just be honest about what was on his mind?

And hey, he might want to invite some of these guys to his wedding next summer.  It would probably be a good idea to at least let them know he was in a relationship first.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” he said finally. “I’m just kind of excited because my fiancé is in town.”

To their credit, the guys did a respectable job of keeping their betting pool-related reactions to themselves.  Or at least everyone but Tierney did. Given the slightly manic smile on his face and the way that he was not so subtly fist-pumping, he must have had something along the lines of “fiancé who lives out of town.”

(Whoever had “dating someone who lives out of town” must have been very disappointed.)

A few guys shouted their congratulations on his engagement, or came over to smack him on the back.  Pavs grinned and asked, “Hey, does this mean we get to meet her at the game tomorrow night?”

Over his shoulder, Paul’s eyes landed on Logan. He was watching Paul with a bit of a smile on his face, and when he caught Paul’s eyes, he nodded.

And Tomas, of course, looked like he was about to vibrate out of his skin in excitement.

Paul couldn’t let them down now.

With his chest tight and his heart pounding, Paul put on a casual voice he didn’t feel and said, “Well, yeah, he’s going to be there, because he plays for the Predators.”

There was a stutter in the room, like a record had skipped and now everyone was thrown a little off-balance.  Paul languished in that moment of silence, feeling it drag on like years as he waited for the other shoe to drop.

And when it did…

“Wait, but like, which one?”

“Is it Craig Smith?  If I was gonna do a Pred, it would be Craig Smith.”

“What?  Dude, no, everyone knows Josi’s the hottest guy on that team.”

“He’s the  _prettiest_ , maybe, but Smith’s got a pretty great smile.”

“What about Barret Jackman?”

“ _Dude._ ”

“What?  Don’t look at me like that, they’re both d-men, and they’re like, the same age. It would make sense!”

“Wait, wait, Paulie don’t say anything yet – can we get money on this?  I’m betting it’s Weber.”

“ _What-_ ”

“No way, isn’t he married already?”

“Isn’t Jackman?”

“Okay, wait, I’m changing my bet to Wilson, he’s kind of cute.”

“I call Hutton.  I’d do him.”

“ _Oh my God no-_ ”

“A hundred on Neal!” Joe’s voice cut through the shouting, thankfully keeping the guys from suggesting that Paul might be sleeping with any of James’s other packmates.

(If they’d gotten to Calle, he’d probably have to go bleach his soul.)

“Yes!” Paul shouted, just to keep the bets from starting up again.  “Yes, I’m happily engaged to James Neal and it’s all very, very gay.”

His teammates blinked at him in silence for a moment, and then Dilly said with no small amount of condescension, “Well, yeah, Paulie, if you’re marrying a dude, it’s probably supposed to be gay. Otherwise I think you’re doing it wrong.”

That spawned an argument about if you could marry another man without it being gay – “Like on  _It’s Always Sunny_!” – and for the most part, everyone went back to what they were doing and didn’t pay any more mind to Paul.

Joe was still standing too close and looking way too pleased with himself.

“Good for you, Paulie,” he said, rubbing his shoulder again before finally,  _finally_  letting go.  Patty came over and gave him something of the same speech as Logan had, about how the team was behind him and he had their support. Burnzie went in for a high-five, and Tommy just straight-up hugged him, which was followed up by an even tighter hug from Tomas, who was just about beside himself in his excitement.

It was in the end a short, painless thing, coming out to his team, completely at odds with the relief that Paul felt.  So many years of keeping his head down, of telling himself it wasn’t the right time, and he had a team of guys who really didn’t care.  Who were happy for him.

He didn’t even try to keep the smile off his face as he thought about telling James later tonight.

~~~

Paul expected the first meeting of the two packs to go well.  After all, the Nashville pack had already known about Paul’s new packmates, and Paul’s pack hadn’t taken long at all to come around to the idea of meeting his mate’s pack – after they’d gotten over the whole “Paul has a mate who isn’t a werewolf but still has a pack” thing.

Things really shouldn’t have been that complicated.

They weren’t, at first.  Paul picked the Nashville pack up from some coffee shop they’d wandered off to in order to keep their teammates (or rather, their captain) from noticing that all of the werewolves – plus James Neal – were getting into a car with Paul Martin.  Piling them all into the back of Paul’s sedan was an adventure on its own, but Paul let them work it out amongst themselves.  Distracting James away from trying to settle the griping amongst his wayward packmates proved to be a  _much_  more satisfying pursuit.

He’d already sent the Sharks pack back to his house following practice.  Paul didn’t have to think very long before deciding that his house was the best place to have the two packs meet for the first time – after all, a copious amount of werewolves was why he’d bought so much land to begin with.

The way that his packmates were all assembled so primly on his couch when he came through the front door was a little concerning, if only because he’d never thought he would ever see Tomas Hertl perched on the edge of his seat with his folded hands resting atop his crossed legs, looking every bit the part of a stern mother waiting for her teenager to come home after missing curfew.

If anything, Paul had always imagined that he would be the scolding parent in that situation.

That said nothing for the way that Melker was frowning.  Paul hadn’t thought that Melker even  _knew_  how to look that disapproving.

The goalies both wore blank expressions, but that really wasn’t too surprising.  Logan was the only one who was behaving even slightly normally, not staring at the door like it had personally insulted his mother, but he was still being oddly quiet.

Before Paul could remark on their strange behavior, James was crowding over his shoulder, trying to get a look around the house.

“Oh, man, Paulie, that is a big-ass sofa. I mean, I knew it was big from the little video tour you gave me but like,  _damn_.”

Paul looked at him from the corner of his eye and tried to suppress a smirk.

“It’s to match the size of your bed.”

“Speaking of!”

It was only through practice that both Paul and James took a step forward before the pack barreled into them from behind.

“I hope you have an appropriately large bed, Paulie,” Carter said, walking through to the living room and taking no stock of the pack staring at him from the couch. “Because we’re feeling particularly cuddly today.”

“We’ve been deprived,” Goose agreed, clapping Paul on the shoulder none too gently. “And besides, where Nealer goes, we go.”

“And we all know where Nealer’s going.” The way that Carter waggled his eyebrows was only slightly less terrible than the high-five that he gave to Goose.

The way that Paul’s pack was watching them grew more concerning by the minute.  They were all frowning now, and Melker looked like he was getting his hackles up over something.  The weirdest part was Tomas, who for once in his life wasn’t smiling, but who actually looked upset.

He started to suspect that James had some sort of sixth sense about werewolves (distantly, he could hear James’s voice insisting that it was his “werewolf detective skills” in play), because he seemed to notice right away the way that Paul’s pack was behaving.  If it bothered him at all, he didn’t show it, seeing as he walked right over to them, held a hand out to Logan, and said, “Hi, I’m James Neal, but you guys can call me Nealer.”

Logan at least seemed to relax, because he shook James’s hand with a hint of a smirk and said, “Yeah, we figured it out.  I’m Logan.  This is Melker-”

And then shit started to get really weird, because when James went to shake Melker’s hand, he was abruptly jerked backwards and dragged behind Calle, who was snarling at Melker like he’d insulted his mother.  Or his hair.

James’s surprise quickly morphed into a frown, which only deepened as half of Paul’s pack growled back, and Tomas –  _Tomas!_  – actually curled his lip.

“Dude, what the fuck?” James said.  When he tried to move away, Calle moved with him, keeping himself between James and the other pack, never once breaking his gaze or the rumble of his snarl.

As obnoxious as they could be, Goose and Carter were good for some things, because they were quick to swoop in on either side of Calle.  With some deft maneuvering they were able to get themselves between Calle and the pack and shuffle him a few steps backwards, allowing James to move away.

Calle gave a brief, plaintive whine, cutting a quick glance over at James as if pleading with him to get back where Calle could protect him before turning his glare back on the other pack.

“I thought you guys were supposed to be Swede-friends!” Carter said with a grunt.  He looped an arm across Calle’s chest and yanked him backwards as Goose got him nearly into a chokehold.

When Melker took a step forward as if to challenge them, only for  _Tomas_ to shove in front of him as if to defend  _him_ , Paul knew he had to step in to defuse the situation.

_“What the fuck is going on?”_

It was particularly satisfying to see how quickly that made everyone stop what they were doing.  Even James looked suitably impressed.

Calle looked hurt, and Paul knew him well enough by now to say he was probably pouting.  He went limp, but Carter and Goose wisely kept their hold on him.

Tomas had similarly wilted, but not enough to stop glaring daggers at the other pack.  Luckily Logan was already on it, grabbing Tomas by his shoulders and steering him forcefully back to the couch.  Paul could hear him hissing,  _“What the fuck is wrong with you?”_  as he did.

That just left Melker, eyes wide and shaking faintly, agitated more than fearful.

When his gaze flicked to Paul, his shoulders slumped a little, but his fists stayed tight, at the ready.

“He started it,” he said quietly, sounding every bit the petulant pup in a way that Paul normally reserved for, well, Calle.

Paul didn’t hide how he rolled his eyes, but Melker did have a point.  He turned to Calle.

“Well?  Do you care to explain?”

Calle looked away, ducking to avoid meeting Paul’s gaze. 

Of course that was when James stepped in.  He put a hand on Calle’s shoulder, and that was enough for Calle’s head to snap up, a little too eager.

“Hey, what’s going on?” James asked softly.  Calle didn’t even respond at first, too busy making a show of reveling in James’s attention, and Paul didn’t need to see the way that Carter and Goose were huffing and rolling their eyes to figure out what this was about.

As if he couldn’t be outdone, Melker was suddenly pressed up against Paul’s side, casting murderous glares at Calle.  Tomas actually strained against Logan’s hold so that he could lean forward and  _grab Paul’s fucking hand_.

When he realized that Deller was actually  _filming_  it while Jonesy buried his laughter against his shoulder, Paul couldn’t restrain himself any longer.

“Are you three seriously having a  _pissing match_  over us?”

James frowned sharply, probably offended on Calle’s behalf, before he paused and his eyes narrowed.  He had a pretty big blind spot where his packmates were concerned, but Paul knew he’d started to figure out that Calle had some pretty clingy behaviors towards him.

“No,” Calle denied immediately. “But that’s because you’re already part of our pack.  You were ours first.”

Melker and Tomas started growling again, and even the others put up a few token scowls of protest.

“I don’t think anybody here gets to own me except for James,” Paul said loudly.

The growls cut out abruptly.

“Aw, babe.” James had that soft sort of look on his face that he always got when Paul said something that reaffirmed their relationship, like Paul wasn’t the one who was phenomenally lucky to have someone like James in his life.

Normally Paul liked to kiss him when James gave him that look, because he was too beautiful not to, and that usually led to even nicer things, but right now they had to settle this idiotic little territory dispute between their packs.

After all, James had been pretty excited by the idea of them playing happy families with their packs, and Paul wasn’t in the business of letting him down.

Paul’s packmates were giving him wounded looks, even the goalies.  Their expressions only got darker when Calle just had to say, “Exactly, you belong to Nealer, and he’s our alpha, so you’re ours.”

The grip that Tomas had on Paul’s hand suddenly turned bone-crushingly tight.  It was also getting a little sweaty.  Paul would have pulled away, but then Tomas would give him those miserable puppy eyes and Paul would probably do something embarrassing in front of James.  Plus, he still had Melker adhered to his side, so Tomas holding his hand was probably the lesser of two evils.

“I’m part of my pack here just as much as I am yours,” Paul said. He tried to be subtle about squeezing Tomas’s hand, but just about anyone would have seen the blinding grin that Tomas was sending him.  Calle’s eyes narrowed; James looked like he thought it was hilarious.

He was sure he’d be hearing about that one later.

“And,” he said, “I think you all should remember that seeing as James is my mate, James is by default just as much a part of my pack as he is yours.”

Paul was ready for Calle’s protests, but he didn’t expect the other two to look so offended.

“Whoa, no way,” Carter said immediately, before Calle could even complain. “That’s now how this works.  Nealer’s our  _alpha_.  They’re your team, they can be your pack too, I’m fine with that, but Nealer is ours.”

Goose let go of Calle just so he could cross his arms, giving Paul a supremely unimpressed look.

“Not cool, man, you can’t just try to say that someone’s alpha is part of another pack.  Especially a pack that doesn’t even  _have_  an alpha.  They can get their own, they don’t get to claim ours.”

Paul could feel his packmates bristling around him again and tried not to roll his eyes.

“Nobody  _want_  yours,” Tomas growled, pulling out of Logan’s grasp so he could take a step forward.  His face had taken a turn for the thunderous, and he refused to let go of Paul’s hand.

“Why we want  _human_  alpha?”

It seemed like everyone stopped breathing for a moment, like the world fell still as they all stared at each other in shocked silence.

Paul didn’t see how anybody else reacted.  He only had eyes for James, for his Jamie, whose face just  _dropped_ , eyes wide and skin sickly pale.  James’s breath caught in his throat, this sudden little hitch, like he was stunned.  Like it hurt.

Then he flushed and he looked away, down at the floor, digging his nails into his palms, and Paul could practically hear the miserable monologue running through his head, all of those thoughts that Paul tried so hard to keep at bay.

James was  _ashamed_ , and the worst part was that Paul knew it wasn’t that he was ashamed to be an alpha – no, he was ashamed that Paul had to be attached to someone like him.

Paul saw red, but he wasn’t the one who snarled and made a lunge for Tomas.  That was Calle, but his packmates looked seconds from joining him.

It wasn’t an easy feat to shove Tomas and Melker behind him while trying to restrain Calle and pin his arms to his sides.  Calle fought against him like a man possessed – or one who was seconds away from turning into a wolf and trying to rip out someone’s throat.

“Hey, hey!  Calm the fuck down!”  Paul took Calle by his biceps and physically shoved him back towards Carter and Goose, who made no move to take hold of him again.

Paul had never been on the receiving end of one of Calle’s wounded looks before, but to be fair, he didn’t think Calle had ever looked so betrayed.

“You’re siding with  _them_?  You heard what he said!”

The worst part was that Paul was very aware of what Tomas had said, and part of him wanted to rip into Tomas just as much as Calle did.  But right now it looked like the two packs would be more than happy to have a go at removing each others’ spleens, and the more pressing matter was to defuse the situation.   _Then_  he could tell his packmates just how he felt about disparaging comments made about his mate.

“I’m not siding with anyone.  I would rather you didn’t get blood all over my new floors, so you are going to back off and-”

Goose made a noise of disbelief.  “He just insulted your mate and you’re defending him?”

“We defend our pack,” Melker said, probably thinking he sounded menacing.  Paul kind of wanted to slap him for his unhelpful contribution, but right now he kind of wanted to slap everyone in the room, including himself.

Everyone but James.  James, his mate, who was currently staring at the floor like he wished it could devour him whole.  Carter was at his side, making concerned noises and curling an arm tightly around his shoulders when he wasn’t shooting Paul dirty looks.

Fuck, but this was supposed to be a good night.

Calle snarled something in Swedish and was now apparently trying to tear Melker’s face off instead of Tomas’s.  It took all of Paul’s strength to heave him back towards Goose.

“Give me a hand here?” he growled.

Goose didn’t even twitch.  “I’m thinking he has the right kind of idea.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake-” He bodily shoved Calle into Goose’s chest, sending them both back a step.  “You are all fucking  _adults_ , can you not behave yourselves?”

“Tell that to your  _pack_ ,” Goose spat, “They’re the ones who don’t respect your mate.”

“Why would we?” Tomas scoffed. “He’s not even a wolf!”

Paul didn’t stop Calle from lunging for Tomas that time.  He didn’t even look when he heard them tumble to the floor, or the scrabble of their packmates trying to separate them – or maybe join in.

All he saw was James, who flinched, and clenched his jaw, and silently turned around and walked out the front door.

Nobody heard the door click shut with an air of quiet finality, or the way that a piece of Paul’s heart chipped and broke off with it.  The air was rife with snarls and the sounds of fabric tearing, someone undoubtedly shifting through their clothes, and Paul suddenly found that he didn’t give a flying fuck if they all tore each other to shreds right there in the middle of the living room.

James was hurting, his  _mate_  was in pain, and it was his fault.

Paul didn’t even bother to look back as he went for the door.

~~~

It wasn’t hard to find James.  He hadn’t gone far, just to the end of Paul’s overly long driveway. He was standing with his head hung, leaning with a hand on the mailbox like it was all that was keeping him upright.

“I’m fine,” he said as Paul jogged up to him, not even letting him get a word out.  He didn’t look up as Paul approached, and his voice was thin, tight, and decidedly not-fine.

“I’m alright.  I just wanted a moment to, to, y’know.” James waved a hand in the air, still not looking at Paul. “Compose myself.”

Paul put a hand on his back, rubbing firmly between his shoulders.  He tried not to wince at how tight the muscles felt through James’s thin t-shirt.

“I’m sorry.  I never thought he would say something like that – I didn’t think any of them would behave that way.  They said they were excited to meet you guys, I don’t know what went wrong, but – shit.”

Paul scrubbed his free hand over his face and sighed.

“Whatever their problem is, it’s still no excuse. I’m sorry you had to hear that.”

Finally James lifted his head to look at Paul. His eyes were tired, his face pinched, and it looked like it took a lot of effort just to muster up a tepid smile.

Even though it wouldn’t feel the same to James as a wolf, Paul slid his hand up to squeeze the back of his neck anyway.  James gave a soft hum in appreciation and stepped into Paul’s arms, one hand bunching the fabric over Paul’s shoulder as he ducked his head to press his forehead against Paul’s collarbone.  It was a bit of a stretch given the slight height difference, but Paul just wrapped his arms around James and let him press in close.

They stood like that for a quite moment, breathing each other in.

“It’s not totally their fault,” James mumbled, his voice muffled against Paul’s shirt.

“Hmm?” Paul scratched his nails over the place where James’s hairline met his neck, feeling James shudder against him.

“Your pack.  Calle was pushing their buttons.  He wanted to get a reaction.  I don’t know why.  I don’t – fuck, I can barely figure out why anybody does anything.  These guys want me to be their alpha and I’m always ten steps behind, still trying to figure out why they all looked at me like I’d stepped on their tails on purpose just because I squeezed the back of Colin’s neck.”

“Mm, he’s not pack,” Paul hummed in understanding.

“Well, yes, apparently, I figured that out eventually, but it took like way too long to get it, especially because everyone was just giving me these wounded looks and refused to say anything.”

He straightened up then, just enough to hug Paul properly and rest his chin on his shoulder.

“I had to have Cody explain it to me.” His voice was only a step above a whisper, but so loud against Paul’s ear.  “And fuck, that’s a mess on its own.  He absolutely refused to come with us today.  Said it wouldn’t be appropriate because he’s never met you before and he doesn’t want to ‘infringe’ or something.  I told him that it’s bullshit and he’s part of my pack and that means he’s always welcome, but he got really spooked.  He’s always so spooked, barely comes around when the pack gets together unless we drag him.  Like, I know he’s sulking about something and if he doesn’t want to talk about it that’s his business, but, like,  _fuck_ , man, I just want to help.  I can’t do that if he’s always running away.”

Paul hummed again, trying to make it seem like he wasn’t breathing deeply against James’s neck.

“Maybe that’s what he needs,” he said quietly. “Just give him the space to work things out on his own, and let him know that he’s welcome whenever he wants to join.  Not everyone wants that much pack involvement.”

He knew that James wouldn’t be happy with that – James was of the belief that the best part about being a wolf was that it gave you a built-in excuse for a pack – but he was proud when he felt James nod against his shoulder.

“I mean, yeah, I guess.  He’s still a little cagey about the whole me-being-human thing anyway. Not that I think he’s going to out me to Shea or something,” he rushed to say, clearly able to feel how Paul had tensed. “But sometimes he just stares at me looking all confused like he can’t put it all together.  I don’t know. That kid’s got some hang-ups, man.”

Then he laughed and mumbled, “Fuck, all of our kids have hang-ups.  Calle’s got this weird thing where he’s like, mad-possessive of me or something, and sometimes it’s just like cute obnoxious pup stuff, and then sometimes it’s like…”

“Trying to rip my packmates’ heads off at the implication that they have any claim over you?” Paul supplied.

“Yeah, like- wait.”

James pulled back far enough that he could look Paul in the eyes.

“They aren’t like, actually…”

“Trying to kill each other?  They were when I left-”

He tightened his grip on James to keep him from lunging in the direction of the house.

“Settle down, they’ll be fine.  Sometimes it’s good for them to work things out amongst themselves.”

“And let the beat the shit out of each other?” James yelped.

Paul winced.

“It’s not that bad.  They need to figure out how they’re going to be as a pack, and sometimes letting someone get injured pride is a good thing.  Besides, once they figure out that we’ve left, they’ll probably start to realize that they’re morons and cut it out.  This happens in packs sometimes, it can be a good thing.”

“Fuck!”

Paul startled, and James pulled away, just far enough that Paul’s arms fell uselessly to his sides.  James dragged a hand through his hair, completely messing it up, and that honestly felt more concerning than any manner of shouted curses.

“This is what I’m talking about, Paulie!”

James paced a few steps away, head still in his hands.

“This, all of this, pack dynamics and customs and norms, I have no clue what any of it is, and Calle’s got his weird thing about being special and I don’t know how much I should indulge that, because sometimes it’s kind of cute but the other guys are always teasing that he’s an attention whore and I don’t know how much they’re joking and how much they really mean it, so I can’t tell if it’s something I should be putting a stop to.  And then there’s like, this whole shit about being upset over combining our packs, but like, we talked about it and they all said it was okay? Why would they act all fine and then we get here and everyone’s losing their shit?

“And then it turns out that your pack hates the fucking  _idea_  of me just because I’m human-”

“Whoa, whoa, no, wait.”

Paul stepped forward and grabbed James’s wrists, pulling his hands away from his face.  He ran his thumbs over them soothingly before sliding his grip down so that he was holding James’s hands in his own.

“That’s not true,” he said in a hushed voice.  “They don’t hate you.  I think they were nervous to meet you because maybe they didn’t know what to expect – apparently they didn’t have a whole lot of time to get used to the idea of me even having a mate, let alone my mate being human and coming complete with his own wolf pack.  But they don’t hate you, and I promise that Tomas doesn’t mean what he said.  It was inappropriate and rude and trust me, I’m absolutely livid with him right now, but he isn’t that kind of person. Melker too.  I think Calle goaded them and they completely bought into it.”

“Which goes back to why  _mine_  is being so weird,” James sighed.  “I mean, I know he had kind of a shitty experience as a cub, and I guess I really just let him get away with too much because of it.  Plus it’s just more fun that way?  Like, don’t let them hear me say it but I really don’t mind all the guys hanging out at my house all the time.  It’s a little weird if they aren’t around at this point.”

“I could do without them being around sometimes,” Paul mused, but he smirked at James’s sour look to let him know he didn’t really mean it.

James huffed and stepped forward again, pressing up against Paul’s chest; Paul caught him around the waist and wrapped his arms around him.

“Be serious, Paulie, this is serious.” James poked him in the ribs.

“I know, I know.  If you want to spoil your packmates, it’s not the biggest crime in the world, especially after what they’ve been through.  But clearly things have gone a bit too far, if Calle can’t stand the idea of you being anywhere near my pack.  Or me being near my pack, for that matter.”

James groaned suddenly and slumped dramatically against Paul, making Paul stagger back a step in an attempt to support his weight.

“Oh, God, I know what this is,” James whined.  He didn’t help at all as Paul had to prop him back into a standing position.  “Do you remember when you told us about the day you spent out with Hertl, where you played tug of war for like, forever?”

“It wasn’t  _five hours_ \- or, uh, yeah, I remember that.”

Paul refused to blush at James’s smirk, because he had been around James Neal for far too long to ever let James know that he’d managed to fluster him, if only to avoid his gloating.

“ _Well_ , the boys all started teasing that maybe you were going to replace Calle with Tomas – you know, the younger, happier model.  And Calle gets like ten types of squirrely when he thinks that he’s getting replaced.  He spent like a full week announcing that Cody was older than him whenever his name was mentioned just to make sure we couldn’t somehow mistake Cody as a younger wolf than him.

“So now he comes here, and you’ve got a couple of young guys in your pack-”

“And they’re all unsure about having a strange pack suddenly integrated with theirs,” Paul chimed in.

“Exactly, so they’re all on edge, and then Calle starts his like, pre-emptive ‘this is my pack back the fuck off’ bullshit, and they all start fighting over who Dad and Dad belong to.  Fuck, Paulie, why didn’t you tell me we had a blended family?”

After being in a relationship with James for so long, Paul was still rather impressed with himself for not even blinking at that one.

“I don’t think I realized it myself,” he said instead. “But I guess you’re right.  I’m kind of surprised that my new pack is so…attached to me, after such a short amount of time, though.”

James rolled his eyes and prodded Paul in the ribs again.  “Of course they’re attached to you, who wouldn’t be?  You’re Paulie.”

Paul was fairly sure that no matter how healthy his self-esteem, he would never be able to see himself the way that James did, like he was so wonderful and amazing that he transcended reality and achieved some otherworldly level of Minnesota nice-ness.  It still made something in his chest leap every time he heard it, that someone like James could feel that way about someone like him.

(James also regularly told him he was an asshole, but it was probably necessary to keep his ego in check after such effusive praise.)

“Well, regardless of how flattered I am, they still behaved just as poorly as Calle and the rest.  Which leaves the question of how we’re going to deal with this.”

He nodded back up the drive at his house, which he was admittedly dreading returning to.  It seemed like everything would just be so much easier if he just took James and left until they all sorted their shit out or, even better, magically disappeared from his house so he could finally finish giving James the “tour.”

There really better not be blood stains on his new floors.

“As responsible adults?” James hedged slowly.

He made a face.

“Fuck, that felt weird just saying it…” he muttered.

Paul huffed quietly and squeezed James’s hips.

“Weird as it may be, that’s the role they’ve decided to leave to us.  I would say that I hope Jonesy and Deller might have stayed out of the fighting, but Deller was filming it all last time I saw, so I’m not sure I can count them in as mature right now.”

“Okay. So. We have two packs of werewolves trying to murder each other.  Allegedly we aren’t allowed to run away…”

James said this slowly, eyeing Paul as if giving him a chance to say otherwise. Paul was sorely tempted, but forced himself to nod grimly and say, “No, we aren’t.”

“Right.  No running away.  So.  We just…tell them to stop?”

Well, they hadn’t actually tried that.  Though, to be fair, Paul had been more concerned with James’s wellbeing than with trying much of anything.

“We could try that, yeah.  Your pack usually listens to you.”

James snorted loudly and shook his head.  “They abso-fucking-lutely do not, but if I told them I was pissed at them and threatened to leave them behind they might get their shit together.  But even once we get them separated, I don’t see how we’re going to have our big werewolf full moon tonight.  It’d probably just incite another riot.”

Paul sighed and rested his forehead against James’s.

“Well, they’re going to have to suck it up and find a way to get over themselves, because no matter what happens, I am spending the night with you, and I don’t give a flying fuck what they do with themselves.”

James snorted and pressed an all-too-chaste kiss to his lips.

“That’s the spirit.  Now come on, Paulie, we have some werewolves to wrangle.”

“Or throw out of my house.”

James smirked and threw an arm around Paul’s shoulders as he started tugging him back up the drive.

“Or throw out of your house.  Always good to keep options open.”

At least if they did that, Paul considered charitably, he could finally have sex with his fiancé.

Throwing them all out and locking the door was sounding better by the second.

~~~

They didn’t have to throw anybody out of the house, Paul noted with only a hint of disappointment, because it would have been a little cruel to throw somebody out on the lawn and leave them tied up like that. To be fair, they totally deserved a bit of retribution for their shitty behavior, but Paul didn’t have it in him to be that spiteful.

Plus, those knots looked pretty firm.  Paul was pretty impressed, but also fairly sure he didn’t want to ask where they’d learned them.

The scene he and James walked in on was this:

For one, both the furniture and the floors appeared to be relatively unscathed, though a throw rug looked like it had been hastily dragged back into place, so Paul would have to check under that later.

Calle was trussed up on his side on the floor, his wrists and ankles tied together with what appeared to be a mixture of his own clothing and some extension cords.  He had also clearly been one of the wolves who’d shifted, because he appeared to be naked under the blanket someone had thrown over his middle.

Melker and Tomas were in similar positions a few feet away, just far enough that they couldn’t try to kick out at Calle.

All three were glaring mutinously at each other, but they couldn’t do much more than that because they appeared to have been gagged.

Both Logan and Goose were sitting on Paul’s kitchen chairs, which had been hauled into the living room.  That in and of itself wouldn’t have been too strange, except it looked like they’d had their wrists tied behind their backs and tethered to the chairs to keep them from escaping.

Carter sat perched on the edge of the couch, sending fidgety, sidelong glances at Jonesy and Deller.  The Sharks goalies, for their parts, were smiling serenely, Jonesy sitting on the back of the couch and Deller on the seat next to him, leaning against his legs.

Deller was wrapping and unwrapping an auxiliary cord around his hand, looking far too pleased with himself.  Jonesy smiled fondly and rubbed a hand over his short hair.

“We fixed your problem,” he said casually, not bothering to look over at them as they entered the room.

Carter looked at them.  To be more accurate, Carter stared at them with wide, wide eyes, like he’d seen something that he could never unsee and was begging them with his eyes to save them all.

Still without looking, Jonesy reached out and ran a wide hand over the back of Carter’s neck.  Carter’s eyes went impossibly wider.

 _“Dude.”_  James’s breath was warm against the back of Paul’s neck as he whispered, because he’d apparently elected to edge behind him and away from the goalies. “I think your goalies are trying to, like, establish dominance over my goalie. And my everybody.”

James never had quite gotten the hang of speaking lowly enough to keep other wolves in the area from hearing every word that he said, and so Jonesy turned that blank-eyed smile on them and visibly squeezed the back of Carter’s neck.

“We’ve worked out an arrangement.”

“You’re being creepy as fuck, man,” Logan called out.

Without looking, Jonesy grabbed up a throw pillow and lobbed it at Logan’s face, hitting his target with disturbing accuracy.

“While I appreciate you keeping them from ripping my house apart,” Paul began slowly, stepping closer to the three sulking wolves tied up on his floor, “Why is everybody tied up?”

“So they would behave,” Deller said.  He looked extremely pleased with himself. “And those three couldn’t stop growling at each other, so we decided they had to be quiet until they calmed down.”

Jonesy patted his head again, and Deller bumped his head against the side of his leg.

Both Logan and Goose looked thoroughly creeped out, and Carter was trapped looking like some sort of uncomfortable pet who couldn’t decide if he liked this treatment or not, so Paul was glad he wasn’t alone in feeling like he kind of just wanted to take James and leave his own house forever and pretend he’d never had a pack.

 _Fuck_ , but goalies were too weird.

James edged out from behind Paul and towards Calle, who immediately started squirming and making sad noises through the gag. “Okay, well, I think they’re calm now, so maybe we could like, untie them…?”

Deller looked up at Jonesy, who shrugged.  “If they’re all ready to behave.”

Everyone nodded vigorously.

James took that as permission and started trying to undo Calle’s gag.  As soon as he pulled it away, Calle made a particularly pathetic sound and squirmed until he could press his forehead against James’s knee, whispering, “ _Nealer_ , Nealer, I don’t want to  _be_  here, can we go, please?”

Still struggling with the tie around Calle’s wrists, James shot Paul a wide-eyed look.  Paul honestly had no fucking idea what was going on, and so he shrugged helplessly and started untying Tomas.  Deller thankfully decided to be helpful and got to work untying Melker, patting him cheerfully on the head like he tied up his packmates for misbehaving every day.

…Which, maybe he did.  Paul hadn’t been here that long, and with the way Jonesy was holding court right now, maybe this was about to become their new normal.

He thought briefly that perhaps he’d rather join Calle in asking James if they could please leave now.

Carter made quick work of untying both Goose and Logan, which left Paul with so many questions about why goalies seemed so well-versed in tying knots. Once freed, Goose and Carter both hastily scrambled to stand behind James, who was just finishing getting the tie on Calle’s ankles loose enough to slip them free.

“You guys better put these cords back where you got them,” Paul grumbled. Tomas was being absolutely no help, squirming around but not actually helping Paul untie his own ankles.  Paul could have done without all of the nudity too. Tomas only had a t-shirt thrown over him and it wasn’t hiding much.

“Um, okay,” James said. “So Paulie and I had, like, some things we were going to say, to settle all of this, but this whole…this is just a little too fucking weird, and we’re all kind of freaked out, so I think we’re just going to go now and-”

Jonesy frowned.

“You aren’t going to stay for the full moon?”

James made a point of looking down at his recently trussed-up and mostly-naked packmate, and then back up at Jonesy.

“Dude.  You tied up my cub and my Goose and you gave my Carter anxiety.”

“I tied up my own packmates too.”

Well, Paul had to admit that that was fair – technically three of the Sharks pack had been tied up to the Predators’ two, because Carter had been left free for whatever strange goalie reasoning – but it wasn’t nearly as reassuring as Martin probably thought.

Given the look on James’s face, which Paul knew very well was his “this is fucking insane and you’re all insane and I’m going to go now” face – a face that he hadn’t even made when he found out that Paul was a goddamn werewolf –  James very much did not find that reassuring.

“Okay.  Well. This has been enlightening. Thanks for meeting with us. Paulie, I love you, I’ll see you in three months-”

“We play against each other tomorrow night!”

“-I’ll see you tomorrow and then in three months…also Paulie we need to borrow clothes for Calle to wear, I think his pants are kind of a lost cause.”

“I think it would be better if you stayed,” Jonesy said.

James shot him a wary look.  “Are you supposed to be the alpha now or something?  Because you won the battle royale and all?”

Jonesy shrugged.  Paul got the distinct impression that it was less because he didn’t know the answer and more because he didn’t feel like talking about it.

Paul kind of wanted the answer to that question too.

“That’s less than helpful, so I think we’re just going to-”

“Don’t go.”

Everyone turned surprised expressions towards Tomas, sitting on the floor next to Paul and somehow managing to look like a sad pup in need of a hug even when his only clothing was a shirt draped over his lap.

“I am sorry,” Tomas said slowly.  He was staring hard at James, like he could impress the sincerity of his words through his stare.  “I was…I don’t have word, more mean.  Very mean.  You are Paulie’s, and you are good alpha, and okay you are human.  I am sorry.”

James would probably forgive him just with that, because James had a kinder heart than him.  Paul would take longer to let Tomas’s comments go, because Minnesota “nice” came with the ability to hold a grudge for years and he didn’t take comments about his mate lightly, but it meant something that Tomas seemed genuinely apologetic and did so unprompted.

Speaking of prompting, James was prodding at Calle and saying, “Thank you. I think Calle has something he would like to say too.” With a harsher prod, he added, “To two of you.”

Calle, huddled in his blanket, had never before looked quite so pitiful or offended.

“I’m not apologizing to Karlsson,” he hissed, “He played for Skellefteå!”

“Oh, fuck me, is that what this is about, some Swede thing?”

Okay,  _now_  Calle had never looked more offended.

“We  _beat_  Skellefteå in the championships, Nealer.” Evidently James wasn’t affording that the rightful importance it was due.

“We won the next two years!” Melker protested.

Calle made a point of rolling his eyes.  “Nobody cares about that.”

“That’s right,” James interjected, prodding Calle in the ribs again, “Nobody cares about any of this, and so you are going to  _apologize_  to everyone for being an obnoxious little shit.”

“But Nealer-”

“ _Oh my fucking God just_ do _it already!_ ”

Looking mixed parts chastised and obstinate, Calle mumbled, “I’m sorry.”

“For?” James prodded.

Calle huffed loudly. “I’m sorry I growled at everyone and said Paul couldn’t be part of their pack and tried to rip out their throats.  There, are you happy?”

“I just wanted you to say you were sorry for being an obnoxious little shit, but hey, that was great, bud.” James patted him on the head, and they all knew Calle was too much of a glutton for attention to even feel patronized.

“Speaking of,” Paul said, “Would everyone like to apologize for trying to kill each other?”

There was a smattering of mumbled, half-hearted apologies.

Paul cleared his throat. “I meant would you like to apologize to me and James for trying to eviscerate each other  _in our house_.”

A pause, and then an echo of the same mumblings.

“I only break pants, I promise, Paulie,” Tomas said, nuzzling against Paul’s shoulder.  The shirt started to slip off his lap when he leaned closer; Paul sighed and did his best to quickly readjust it, because Tomas apparently wasn’t going to bother.  There was a difference between being exposed to your teammates’ and packmates’ nudity on a regular basis and having to sit in close proximity to it.

“I’m still not happy with how you talked to James,” he said quietly, for Tomas’s ears only, “But for right now, I just want to salvage something from this shit-show.”

Tomas made a sad sound, but he didn’t argue.

“So are we all one big happy pack now?” James asked.

The responses were somehow even less enthusiastic – it was hard to be enthusiastic when you were sneering that hard – but then Jonesy cleared his throat and said quietly, “I think he asked a question.”

Everyone nodded quickly, even James’s pack.  James looked almost impressed, but also a little peeved, which made sense considering the level of shit his pack usually gave him.

That seemed to answer James’s earlier question, though. There was listening to your goalie, and then there was…well, this.

Paul caught James’s eyes and canted his head to the side; James grimaced and shrugged.

“Well, if you can all agree to get along for a night, then I guess we’ll stay here.  I think you guys would actually like each other if you got your heads out of your asses. Also, you guys either have to shift or find some pants because I can’t look any of you in the eye right now.”

Calle made another sad sound and tried to nuzzle against James; James yelped and moved away.

“Oh my God, especially you, get some damn clothes on, Carl!”

Paul had never been entirely sure what the whole “Carl” thing was about, but given how Calle looked like he’d been stabbed and Carter and Goose exchanged a high-five behind James’s back, he was pretty sure he didn’t care to learn.

“Does that mean you’d rather see  _them_  naked than me?” Calle whined.

Melker blushed and started mumbling denials, but Tomas actually smirked and leered.

Paul cuffed him upside the head.  No matter what pecking order they’d all established, berating guys for making eyes at your mate was always acceptable.

“I don’t want to see any of you naked, because you’re all disgusting, so I second the clothes thing,” Logan said.  Goose and Carter made noises of agreement; if Paul hazarded a guess, those three would probably get along just fine, once they got to know each other.

As for the rest of them…

“Wait, Nealer, am I expected to share a bed with them?”

“At this point I don’t care if you share a bed with Brent Burns.”

_“Nealer!”_

“I would share bed with Burnsie,” Tomas said.

Calle narrowed his eyes at him like this was proving some point.

James threw his hands up and stalked out of the room, muttering something about looking for spare sets of clothes.  Deller laughed and said he would help him out, trailing him up the stairs.

The pups were still making eyes at each other, but the other three had started up a conversation bitching about them and already seemed to be getting along swimmingly.  They slowly made their way back to the couch that Jonesy still perched atop of, never having once moved since Paul and James reentered the house. When they sat down, Logan was close enough that Jonesy could run a hand over his hair, something that Tomas had loudly informed them all on their first day as a pack was one of Logan’s favorite things.

And then, he reached over and ran a quick hand across the back of Goose and Carter’s necks.  Both jumped, but they didn’t protest it.

Jonesy caught Paul watching them and smirked, like he was letting Paul in on a joke.

“Things have a way of working themselves out,” Jonesy said quietly.  He didn’t seem too bothered by any of it.

Paul looked back at the kids.  Melker was still huddled under the scraps of his own clothing, but Tomas had shifted and was pawing at him, trying to encourage him to play. Calle sat huddled in his blanket a good distance away, watching them with a frown.  It was hard to tell if he was angry or jealous.

“Yeah.  Yeah, I hope so.”


	58. Predators: Ambush

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompted: Does Nealer stand his ground the first time the entire pack charges at him with excitement or does he try to sit down so he won’t get completely knocked over?
> 
> 8/9/18

James had owned a dog growing up, and so he was no stranger to the “ _oh my God you came back I can’t believe it I’m so happy!!!”_ overreaction tackle upon greeting his dog after being gone for a few days. Or a few hours. Or fifteen minutes.

James had owned  _a_  dog. That did not prepare him for owning a pack of werewolves, particularly because upon assuming ownership of said pack of werewolves, he for some stupid reason kept expecting them to actually behave like his human teammates and not, you know, dogs. Or wolves, as it may be in this case.

Basically, James didn’t think it was nearly that funny that he hadn’t seen this coming,  _shut up, Paul_.  He thought it was fairly reasonable to expect that he could come to his own home in Nashville after a summer away visiting family and find it, y’know, empty of overexcited cryptids.

He would be wrong, but what kind of detective would he be if his theories didn’t fall through once in a while?

He still thought it was overkill for them to wait inside his front door to ambush him, because he had no way of knowing that as soon as he stepped through the door he was going to be thrown right back out of it by a flood of hot, sweaty wolves who thought that the best way to say hello was to grind their alleged alpha into the pavement and then sit on him so he could never consider leaving them ever again.  (This, of course, ignoring that they had all left too.)

Through the sea of fur and what had to be Maz licking his ear, he could hear the sounds of Paulie’s laughter, safely standing a few yards shy of the chaos.

“You bastard,” James grumbled under his breath.  He knew Paul would hear him no matter how quiet he was, which made him feel a little better.

Louder, he called out, “I hate you all!”

And then Maz started trying to lick his mouth, and James declared that he was disowning them all.

(He threatened to disown them at least three times a week, but it was the thought that counted.)


	59. Sharks: Paul's Retirement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aleksrothis prompted: Are you taking prompts in general, or only for Herb's Electronics 'verse? I would love to read something about Paulie's retirement - werewolf detective verse if that's possible without spoiling the next story...
> 
> 11/18/18

He knew it was going to happen eventually.  It happened to everyone in his position – one day, NHL teams were going to stop calling.  He wasn’t a franchise player, one who could keep signing one year contracts until he felt like stopping. If you didn’t call it quits yourself, then either your body or the NHL would do it for you.

Paul’s body had been sending up signals for a few years that he was getting to the end, but it was the NHL that put the nail in that coffin.

The writing was on the wall when he was bought out by San Jose: 37 year old defenseman, bought out after being plagued by lingering injuries and underperformance.  That would be a hard sell to any team, but he’d held out hope that maybe someone would be looking for an experienced veteran at a cheap price to show the ropes to some new kids.  He’d never missed the playoffs, and he’d never been bounced to the AHL before this past year; that had to stand for something.

It didn’t stand for enough, evidently.  The summer came and went, training camps started up, and Paul’s agent just sighed every time they spoke.

“We can look at Europe?” his agent had offered.

Paul turned him down every time.  Europe wasn’t an option.

He had always told himself that if it came down to Europe or retirement, he’d take his retirement with grace.  He’d spent four years away from James, struggling with cramped visits and summers that had expiration dates; he wasn’t about to put four thousand miles between them.

James would never ask it of him.  He never had, even when Paul had brought it up.  It was so typical of him, to be so easily supportive and accepting of whatever Paul decided to do.

Paul tried to be the same way.  Neither of them could control it of course, when James was traded to Vegas, a team that was quite literally an unknown with absolutely no pack history or structure for Paul to study up on.  They’d been able to make the most of it, at least, given how much closer they were physically. Visiting certainly became more manageable.

Calgary had been James’s choice.  He’d had options, but Calgary was what James wanted, and so Paul had nodded along and pulled up a team roster.

He didn’t even bother suggesting that James keep his connection to wolves a secret, not when he knew that Elias Lindholm would be in Calgary.  Calle couldn’t keep a secret for the life of him, and so Paul had no doubt in his mind that Calle’s cousin knew all about Calle’s “favorite alpha.”

(Sometimes, he wondered what Calle’s family must think, and then he remembered how his own family thought that James becoming an alpha was just the absolute funniest thing they had ever heard, and he figured that Calle’s family probably agreed.)

Not to mention, he was fairly sure that Gaudreau was the closest thing resembling an alpha in Calgary, and when Paul had realized that he’d had to actually sit down because he was laughing so hard he thought he might fall down otherwise.

James would fit in well there, another group of almost-kids who would probably appreciate his particular brand of lenient leadership: just enough structure to feel safe, but loose enough that they could gain confidence and learn from their own mistakes.

So James went to Calgary, and Paul stayed in San Jose, waiting on a prayer that somebody might come calling.

Nobody did.  He wasn’t sure he ever really expected them to anyway.

His pack tried to stay encouraging.  They’d gotten a little squirrely when the season had begun and Paul still wasn’t signed anywhere.  Apparently they thought he was going to draw away from the pack now that he was no longer attached to the team, and they were almost preemptively clingy about it.

Maybe the thought really had passed through Paul’s mind, that he shouldn’t be infringing on the pack when he didn’t even play there anymore, but it was dismissed about as soon as it came.  For one, his mate would have a whole lot to say about pack having nothing to do with what team you played for and where you lived, and for another, he didn’t really fancy the idea of being alone just so he could mope.

And so he let Tomas drag him to awful arcade restaurants, and he let Logan take him for coffee, and he let Jonesy do that weird alpha goalie thing where he sat behind Paul on the back of the couch and petted his hair because that’s what made him happy.

And it was okay.  Paul was sad about hockey, but he wasn’t sad about his pack.

By the time mid-November came around without any interested calls, Paul decided to admit defeat.

In the end it was a relief.

It was bittersweet, to be sure, to finally close the book on his hockey career.  But at the same time it was just so good to be able to put an end to the indeterminate waiting and turn towards the next part of his life.

He was going to join James in Calgary.  He’d always planned it; ever since he and James became mates, he’d known that he would undoubtedly retire before James, and that when that happened, he would follow James wherever he went, as long as James would have him.

And so the day after he announced his retirement, he started packing his bags.

Paul had walked into his bedroom searching for his passport, and when he came back, Deller and Logan were sitting on his couch, watching him with far too blank expressions.

“Hey Paulie,” Deller said lightly, visibly eyeing the suitcases arranged throughout the room.  “You going somewhere?”

He tried not to roll his eyes too hard and continued with his packing, checking his list for the next item.

“I’m going to stay with James, which you both already know.  Don’t you guys have a game tonight?”

Logan threw an arm over the back of the couch, tilting his head back to watch Paul move around.

“That’s later.  We figured you were going to see James.  We just wondered what you’re doing with all those bags.”

Paul didn’t bother to look at them. “I’m staying for a while, which means I need more than an overnight bag’s worth of stuff.  By the way, you’re welcome to whatever’s left in the fridge, I’m throwing it all out before I leave.”

Logan and Deller eyed each other meaningfully and both sat up straight.

“How long are we talking?” Deller asked slowly.  “A few weeks?  A month?  Are you staying through Christmas?  Because-”

“The season,” Paul interrupted, tucking his laptop into his backpack and wrapping up the charger.  “I’m moving there for the remainder of the season.  After that…”

He shrugged.

It was almost startling when they didn’t have anything to say back to that, enough so that Paul bothered to see what was going on.

Both were staring at him with stricken expressions, faces gone pale.

“The rest of the season?” Deller croaked.  “But…”

“Did you talk to Jonesy?” Logan said, almost at the same time.  “You need to talk to Jonesy before you do that.”

It occurred to Paul, at that moment, to remark that he didn’t need to ask the team alpha for permission to move to Calgary when he was no longer a part of the team; but he bit his tongue.  There was no way to say that without sounding like he was rejecting them, like he was trying to throw it in their faces.  It was a fact of life, though: technically, Paul no longer had an attachment to the San Jose Sharks, and was only still attached to their pack because he hadn’t had anywhere else to go while he waited.  Now that he was retiring, he was free to go be with James, his mate, and he didn’t need the blessing of a team alpha to do that seeing as he no longer had a team.

But it would never sound that way to the pack, and so instead he just said, “I’m going to be with James.  You can’t begrudge me wanting to be with my mate, if I have the chance.”

Now they looked conflicted, just as Paul had expected they would.  It was a challenge every day to be away from James; it had been a challenge for the last four years.  Nothing was going to keep Paul from going to him, now that they didn’t have to worry about being on separate teams.

Not even his pack, no matter how much he cared for them.

“But like…the house,” Deller said quietly, “You have a house here, a really nice house.  Are you…you’re going to come back, right?  Eventually?”

He thought back to when he’d first come to San Jose, a weird little pack who were trying to figure things as they went because they didn’t really have any existing pack structure to begin with.  Paul’s house, the house he’d bought to specifically appeal to James, a peace offering after he’d been so out of line about James’s new pack, had become something of a focal point for the Sharks pack.  It had the free space to roam around, and the extra bedrooms that Paul would never need on his own, and to his own bafflement, it was where everyone seemed to feel safe and comfortable.

It wasn’t the alpha’s house, but then again, Jonesy’s seat of power was the back of Paul’s couch instead of an actual property.

And if the owner of the unofficial pack house was planning to move out of the country, it was probably a pretty significant blow to pack stability.

Not for the first time, Paul rubbed a hand over his face and sighed.  Packs had been so much easier to navigate, back before Paul’s human mate decided to run one and dragged Paul along for the ride.

“I’m keeping the house,” he said, trying not to notice how the other two quite visibly relaxed at the words. “James and I agreed that it was a good piece of land, and that we’d keep it until we both retired before we decided where we wanted to settle permanently.  Right now, we’re still seeing where his career takes us, so…”

He shrugged.  “This is our home.”

Paul didn’t expect them to hug him, maybe because they both had to vault over the couch to do it.

“It’s not a big deal,” he wheezed into Logan’s chest.

Deller was at his back, nuzzling at Paul’s hair.

“It is for us.  You’re still a part of our pack, Paulie, no matter where you go, or where we go. That whole arrangement Nealer has with the guys from Nashville, that’s us with you.  You’re still pack, forever.”

“That’s not really how hockey packs go, you guys,” Paul said.  But he couldn’t keep himself from smiling.

“Maybe they should,” Logan grumbled.  “They didn’t wear helmets back in the day, and that was fucking stupid.  Just because the old guys didn’t keep their packs doesn’t mean we can’t.”

Paul just patted whichever parts of them he could reach until they deemed it acceptable to let him up for air.  “You guys can still meet up here for full moons or whatever, as long as you don’t trash the place.”

Logan rolled his eyes.  “We don’t just want you for your house, dumbass.  We’ll take the house, of course, but that doesn’t mean we don’t also want you for you.”

“I told you, you’re stuck with us forever.” Deller slung an arm over Paul’s shoulders.  “Which means you should visit sometimes, even if you go live with James. A whole season is a long time to be away.”

“Yeah, and otherwise Jonesy might decide we have to make a trip up to Calgary to check on you,” Logan added.

Paul scoffed.  “I think you guys are vastly overestimating how much Jonesy is willing to exert his power as an alpha.”

“He told me to steal your passport if you refused to come back,” Deller said, wiggling said passport in Paul’s face.  When Paul patted at his back pocket, sure enough, it was empty.

“You’re all insane,” Paul growled, snatching at the passport.

Deller held it just out of reach, smiling serenely. “Are you going to come back?”

It wasn’t worth trying to wrestle him for it, not when Paul was going to agree anyways.  “ _Yes_ , now give me my passport and go home, you have a game to prepare for and I have a flight to catch and way too many bags to pack.”

His passport was tucked into his hand, and in the same move Deller grabbed the back of Paul’s head and pulled him down so that he could press a kiss to his hair.

“Be good, Paulie, have fun in Calgary,” he said, sauntering off towards the door.

Logan scrubbed a hand through his hair, just to be a dick.  “Text us when you get there!”

Just as quickly as they’d arrived, they were gone.

 _My pack is a bunch of overly dramatic fools_ , he texted James as he heard Deller’s truck start up.

_Yea but there urs + u luv them. Pack ur bags babe, I wanna come home to u tonite._

Paul had never packed so quickly in his life.


	60. Predators/Wild: Weber/Suter/Parise Soulmate AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompted: Your wolfy world soulmate au: a wolf's sense of smell is damaged and so they cant recognize their soulmate. I loved the dicky-nealer one!
> 
> I could have made a much longer fic of this, but I wanted to keep these prompts relatively brief.
> 
> In the same soulmate AU as the Giroux/Stafford and Neal/Clune soulmate fics and therefore not "canon."
> 
> Shield your eyes, children. It’s the return of Sad Shea Weber.
> 
> 11/18/18

Once upon a time, Shea Weber had believed in fairytales.

His parents were a fairytale, something straight out of a storybook: Girl wanders through woods near her grandmother’s house, Girl finds Wolf, Girl and Wolf stare at each other in shock across a picturesque clearing.  Then the plot twist: Girl is also a wolf, and Wolf is also a human boy, and they are staring at each other because they’ve fallen in love at first scent with their soulmate.  Girl and Boy become inseparable best friends, and marry right out of high school, having children and living perfect happy lives together forever and ever.

The End.

Roll the credits.

That was the story Shea heard again and again throughout his life.  You smell your soulmate, you immediately know they’re your One True Love, you run into each other’s arms in slow motion like you’re in a romance film, and you fall deeply in love for the rest of your lives.

He had too much physical proof of that possibility not to be a little naive about soulmates.

When Shea finally met his own soulmate, it wasn’t just a record-scratching moment of “wait, something’s not right here.”

It was a full on “film starts to dissolve and the picture on screen goes up in flames and actually the whole theatre is in flames and then everyone died.”

At least that was what it felt like.

Shea Weber met his soulmate when he was seventeen years old at the 2003 NHL Draft.  He was drafted in the second round by the Nashville Predators.  He had only just stepped off the stage, delirious with excitement and shock, when he was ushered over to where the other drafted players stood, and that was when he smelled it.

Crisp apples, a hint of pumpkin, the fresh cut of newly laid ice: all of his favorite things about autumn, wrapped up in one perfect soulmate.

His soulmate, who had just been drafted in the first round by the Nashville Predators.  They were going to be teammates.

Shea Weber’s first meeting with Ryan Suter could not have been more of a fairytale unless it, too, had begun with  _once upon a time_.

Instead, it began with Shea, smiling ridiculously and bounding right up to Ryan and saying in as hushed a voice as he could manage, “I can’t believe you’re my soulmate and we get to play together.”

And it began with Ryan, smile melting off his face into a look of shocked dismay, saying, “I’m sorry, but you must be mistaken. I already have a soulmate.”

It began with Shea’s eyes falling on the silvery scar of teeth marks on Ryan’s neck, and Ryan muttering a hasty excuse and leaving the area, and Shea staring after him, feeling like his heart had just fallen out of his chest.

That was the beginning and the end of Shea’s fairytale.

When he was seventeen years old, Shea stopped believing in fairytales, and he started believing in reality.

The reality was this: Ryan Suter’s soulmate was Zach Parise, who was drafted by the New Jersey Devils in the first round.  They’d met last year at World Juniors, each coming home with a gold medal and a soulmate.  They were from the Midwest, they came from famous hockey families, and in the wolf world their mating was akin to a royal wedding.

Ryan Suter had already had his fairytale.  It just wasn’t with Shea.

Shea had a good few years to come to terms with it. Oh, it fucking hurt alright, to go to development camp every year and feel his heart wrench in his chest, telling him to chase down the most beautiful scent in the world and beg it to accept him, but Shea was getting better at dealing with the pain.  It never fully went away, but after a while he could mask it well enough that he could even smile back when Ryan clapped him on the shoulder and said it was great to see him again.

He didn’t know if it made it better or worse that he and Ryan played beautiful hockey together.  They played the way he always imagined soulmates would, tape to tape no-look passes, just an innate knowledge of where the other would be at any time. When they played together his body sang with the joy of being on the same wavelength, and his teeth ached with the need to bite and claim and  _connect_.

Being friends with Ryan felt like an exercise in masochism, and yet Shea could never deny him a thing.  It was both the easiest and the hardest thing he had ever done, to spend so much of his free time with Ryan, sitting next to him on a plane, in a car, sharing rooms on the road, constantly wanting to roll in that scent of autumn and consciously reminding himself to keep a safe distance.

If Ryan noticed anything strange, he didn’t say it. In fact, he never once acknowledged that little mishap when they first met, the most mortifying moment of Shea’s life.

If he wanted to forget about it, that was fine with Shea.  He’d gladly forget it, if he could.

But Shea was cursed to relive that moment for the rest of his life, every time he smelled Ryan’s scent and had to harshly tamp down all of his instincts screaming at him to  _fucking do something already_ , because Ryan was claimed, Ryan was not his soulmate, and he never would be.

Once, just once, he asked his grandmother, the alpha of his family pack, if she had ever heard of a wolf finding their soulmate, but their soulmate already belonged to another.

“What a horrible thought,” she’d murmured, raising a hand to her mouth.  “I wouldn’t even want to think on it.  It could never happen.  We all have our one destined for us; God would never want a wolf to be in that much pain, to always be denied by a soulmate who doesn’t love you back.”

Shea didn’t cry any more, hadn’t in a long time, but he’d been pretty close to it that day.

He didn’t ask anyone about it again.  He had his answer.

The best of it was, he couldn’t even be mad at Ryan and Parise for being soulmates.  How could he, when they were so clearly happy together?  Ryan lit up on the days they played New Jersey, his scent heating with cinnamon and nutmeg and cloves, spices and cider on a blustery day, his face so incandescently happy whenever he laid eyes on Parise.  Parise was just the same, smiling at Ryan like he’d hung the moon and the stars and maybe the sun too.

They were stupidly, disgustingly happy together, and Shea couldn’t begrudge them that.

He was just really, really fucking sad.

Maybe it was showing on his face, or maybe he was staring too hard, but Paul Martin from the Devils took one look at Shea’s face, followed his gaze back to Ryan and Parise skating around each other at warm-ups, and rolled his eyes.

“They’ve been together too long to still act like this is the first time they’ve smelled each other,” he muttered to Shea, but he was smiling, so it seemed more like he was teasing than anything else.

Shea didn’t know what made him bring it up later to Ryan in the locker room. Maybe it was his way of trying to express that he was okay with their relationship, that he was over it.

“Paul Martin thinks you and Parise are a little obvious about each other,” he murmured.

Ryan had shot him a confused look, and Shea elaborated, “He said you’ve been together for too long to still be acting like you just smelled each other for the first time.”

He was smiling, waiting for Ryan to blush or refute it, because the way Ryan looked when he was embarrassed was kind of adorable, but instead Ryan frowned even more.

“Paul Martin is a wolf?” he hissed, his eyes wide.

Shea just rolled his eyes and called him useless.

He learned to live with it, feeling like he was being torn in two on a regular basis. He did a fairly good job of putting on a happy front and playing great hockey and still being a good friend to the man who would never love him back.

Shea smiled while his heart was breaking for a good seven years with the Predators, and then Ryan became an unrestricted free agent and he left Nashville to go play with Parise in Minnesota, and then Shea didn’t even have a fucking reason to smile anymore, and maybe he didn’t have a heart, either.

The thought of playing in Nashville without Ryan was unbearable.  Shea signed a $110 million, 14-year contract with the Philadelphia Flyers two weeks later, too ludicrously expensive for the Predators to ever match it.

The Preds matched it.  Shea had already spent his entire career surviving the utterly unbearable; what were fourteen more years?

It was easier, because Ryan wasn’t around for Shea to smell anymore, and it was horrible, because Ryan wasn’t around for Shea to smell anymore.  He wasn’t being taunted each day by the soulmate who would never love him, but now he didn’t see his soulmate at all.  It felt like it had been better to have a piece of Ryan, to be his friend and his partner, than to have nothing at all.

He was almost glad for the lockout, because hiding himself away at home let him avoid the sort of shops and stores that were selling apple cinnamon candles and pumpkin spice everything, and he could tell himself that maybe Ryan’s scent would stop meaning so much, once he got away from it for a while.

It didn’t.  If anything it was even worse, because the first time he saw Ryan again was across the ice, and he wanted to rip his own teeth out because the urge to  _bite_  and  _claim_  and keep Ryan from leaving him again was so strong.

His mouth guard had to be thrown out after that game, given how badly he’d gnawed on it.

It didn’t help that he had fucking  _Parise_  giving him worried looks, like he thought he might not be able to keep his shit together.  Ryan must have told him at some point, that when they first met Shea had thought they were soulmates, or maybe he just told Parise that Shea was fucking unstable.

Regardless, Shea didn’t really feel like dealing with Parise’s scrutiny, not today, and so he kept his head down after the game and ignored Ryan’s texted invite to hang out and he booked it for his car as soon as the press handlers would let him get away.

Ryan and Parise hanging out in front of his car really put a dampener on that plan.

“The hell are you doing?” he snarled, because his teeth were still itchy and he felt on edge, cornered, ready to fight or flee – and they were getting in the way of his means of escape.

Ryan looked taken aback, stunned, like he’d never expected such a reaction from Shea.  Maybe he hadn’t.  Maybe Shea had done such a good job of pretending for the past ten years that Ryan actually believed he was okay.

He didn’t really feel up to pretending right now. He felt like an exposed nerve, raw and vulnerable and painful.

Parise made it worse, that same sad look he’d been wearing on the ice all game.

“Shea,” he said sadly, his voice low and his face drawn. Fuck, he couldn’t take pity right now.

He ducked his head and closed his eyes, taking a deep, shuddering breath.

“Please just let me go home,” he said, doing his best to keep his voice steady.

When he opened his eyes, Parise had taken a step closer, and his eyes were the first thing that Shea saw, a deep brown that was so dark he could barely tell where his pupils began.  He felt warm, he  _smelled_  warm, like mulled cider, spices tingling against Shea’s nose, and-

Shea let out a breath and inhaled again.  Cloves were the strongest, with a heavy base of cinnamon and nutmeg, maybe some cardamom-

He shook his head, breathing deeply and becoming more confused by the second.

“I don’t-”

Parise smiled again, sad and warm all at the same time.

“You noticed too, huh?  I think I noticed it years ago, when we played Nashville, but I thought it might just be Ryan, because the smells complement each other so well.  But then today I realized that I hadn’t smelled it at all until today, meaning that it had to be someone separate from Ryan.  And then when I asked Ryan about it…”

Here he looked at Ryan, who was shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot, head turned down but looking up at Shea through his lashes like a guilty child.

“Shea,” Ryan said slowly, “I think I may have made a mistake.”

Shea had no fucking clue what was going on here, but it was getting more overwhelming by the second.

“What are you guys talking about?”

Ryan looked helplessly at Parise, and Parise sighed and stared up at Shea with big, sad eyes.

“Shea, Ryan doesn’t have a sense of smell.”

 “…What?”

That was fucking ridiculous, enough so that Shea would be laughing if he didn’t feel so close to losing his shit right now.  Of course he could smell things; all wolves could smell things, better than a human could at that.  It was a fundamental part of being a wolf!

But Ryan was hanging his head guiltily, like it was something he was ashamed of, and Parise was rubbing a hand over the back of his neck comfortingly.

“He can’t smell as well as most wolves,” Parise said quietly, his eyes on Ryan. “He probably smells as well as a normal human, but he can’t pick up scent trails, and he can’t recognize other wolves by smell, and he can’t recognize soulmate scents.”

Then he looked Shea dead in the eyes and said, “The only reason he knew I was his soulmate was because I told him that he smelled like my soulmate.”

It sounded absolutely preposterous for a wolf to lack something so integral to their species, and yet it made a sick sort of sense at the same time.  It would explain why Ryan was chronically lost on full moons without Shea circling back to find him, why he was never able to track prey until it was right in front of him, why he couldn’t tell when guys on other teams were wolves – fuck, when guys on their own team were wolves!

And it would explain why he couldn’t recognize that Shea might be his soulmate, if he thought he’d already met his soulmate.

Nobody had ever heard of three wolves being each other’s soulmates, but…at the same time, nobody had ever heard of a wolf without a sense of smell, or a wolf with an unrequited soulmate.

All of them were equally plausible, at this point.

“So you’re saying,” Shea said slowly, his eyes on Parise – on Zach? “That I smell like a soulmate to you.”

Zach nodded slowly, almost reverently, far too intimate for a parking lot outside a hockey arena.  He wrapped his hand around Shea’s wrist, thumbed his pulse point, and Shea had to struggle to remember how to breathe with his lungs so full of spices.

“You smell like maple and cedar and pine and falling leaves,” he said.  He smiled a little, shrugged slightly.  “I’m so sorry I didn’t figure it out earlier, but I thought it had something to do with Ryan, because he smells like pumpkin spice and apples and-”

“-and a brand new sheet of ice,” Shea finished for him. Zach’s smile grew until it looked painful, and he let out a breathless laugh.

“Yeah.  Exactly. And there’s no way-” He reached behind him and grabbed Ryan’s wrist, pulling him forward until there was only a warm pocket of space between the three of them.  “-There’s  _no way_  that we could both smell Ryan’s true scent…”

“Unless you were both mine,” Ryan said quietly.  He looked up at Shea with that same unsure expression on his face, a cross between shy and scared – a way he’d never looked around Shea before.

“Shea…I’m so fucking sorry, I can’t…I can’t even imagine what it’s been like for you, suffering alone all these years because I didn’t listen to you.  I’m sorry I didn’t tell Zach earlier, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth, about my nose, but I was so scared because-”

His voice cut off abruptly, but he didn’t have to say it. Wolves were an infamously judgmental species, and they wouldn’t look kindly on someone they viewed as so fundamentally  _defective_.  He couldn’t blame Ryan for wanting to keep it a secret, for not knowing who he could trust.

This time it was Shea who reached out and cupped the back of Ryan’s neck, letting his thumb fall over Zach’s bite mark.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I know why you did it. I can’t say that the past ten years weren’t hard-”  _Painful, excruciating, impossible._  “-but I forgive you.  You couldn’t have known…nobody would have expected…”

He shook his head, turned back to Zach, ducking his head.

“And  _you_ …I first smelled you years ago too, but I didn’t put it together because you smell like Ryan too.  Cider and cinnamon, and spices…” his voice trailed off in a growl.  Zach’s pupils were blown wide, and Shea could  _smell_  the heat rising in his cheeks, his scent getting thicker by the second.

And the best part was that Ryan looked just as enthralled, just as excited, and Ryan muttered, “Fuck, is it okay for me to admit now that you’re really fucking hot?”

Shea smiled, wide and toothy, and for a moment he felt like the wolf in a fairytale, predatory and alluring.

Maybe, he thought, as he hustled them into his car, casting an eye around the lot to make sure that nobody would be following them or interrupting tonight, he’d been looking at this whole fairytale thing all wrong.

After all, in the original stories, the Big Bad Wolf always won in the end.


	61. Sabres: Return of the Sabres Pack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anonymous prompted: happy fanfiction-anniversary! i'd honestly love just any of your wolfy headcanons for the current happy and winning sabres team?? if that's not something you want to think about then anything from your james neal werewolf detective verse. i love how you wrapped that up for them in the future and i'm excited for the eventual third part even if it never comes. thanks so much for all the fic you share with us <3
> 
> Congrats, this is the first time I’ve written the Sabres pack in close to three years.
> 
> Marty Biron is a wolf now because I do make the rules and I say so.
> 
> 11/19/18

Marty loved the Sabres pack.

He always had, of course – he’d loved it back when he was a kid, wide-eyed and looking to Dom to lead him, both as a hockey player and as a wolf, and he’d loved it when he was the starter, showing the ropes to a skinny string bean of a kid with a hell of a promising future in front of him, and he’d loved it even at the end, as he slowly ceded his role as starter to Ryan, the sting of losing his role soothed by knowing how he’d helped that kid becoming a starting goaltender, become an  _alpha_.

Marty had always loved the Sabres pack when he was a Sabre, and even when he was away. There had to be a reason that he always came home to Buffalo at the end of every season, after all.

There was something about this Sabres pack, though,  _these wolves_  that made it special.

Maybe it was what they’d gone through. So many of them had just been cubs right in the thick of it, in those worst years where all they could see were losses, friends and packmates being traded or jumping ship left and right. You sank or swam on a team like that, grew a thicker skin or let the scrutiny and disdain burn you up.

They’d all been through  _so much_ , as a team and even more as a pack. Marty had only come in towards the end of it, had only a passing relation to the pack as it was shifting through alphas the way it did captains, shedding them after a season, after a few months. By the time he’d settled into his role with the broadcast team enough to start getting to know some of the guys, the pack had settled into some sort of weird holding pattern where they weren’t sure if they wanted to still be packmates anymore after yet another alpha was lost to the disaster that was the Sabres rebuild.

A part of Marty wanted to intervene, the part of him that had never stopped loving the Sabres pack, hell, the whole team. He’d never been an alpha before, but he was a dad, and he knew a thing or two about providing guidance to young hockey players. He could be a stand-in alpha in a pinch, if the boys couldn’t get it together themselves.

But they muscled through it, weathered the storm and the trades, and Enzo did a damn fine job of being a de facto human alpha. And then over the summer of 2017, Marty got offered the position of full-time studio analyst on the Sabres broadcast, and Jason Pominville got traded back to the team.

The ship finally started to right itself.

Marty had heard all about when Ryan and Jason were alphas after Danny left – he’d certainly talked it over with Ryan enough, back when they were working out their little arrangement, arguing that if the Sedins could be co-alphas, so could they. The first thing he’d done when he’d heard the news was text Ryan,  _Fun alpha’s back but no strict alpha, does this make us the party team?_

Ryan had been quick to reply,  _You can be the strict alpha now, I’m busy being the weird loner goalie wolf._

_Nah, I’m the fun uncle wolf. We’re the party team._

Marty had never been more thrilled to find out about the tradition of werewolf holidays.

Pommer coming back didn’t fix the team, but it at least started to fix the pack. The boys had been doing okay on their own, had learned how to rely on each other for support, but they flourished with an alpha to guide them, one who was used to running a pack.

He’d never say it in front of the pack, but one time at a team event, Jason had sidled up next to Marty and looked over at the boys. Risto and Zemgus were ganging up on Sam, trying to wrestle his hat away from him while Jack and Bogo egged them on, not understanding the context but always supportive of messing with a teammate. Jason just watched them and smiled grimly, sighing to himself.

“You know,” he said in quiet French, just loud enough for a wolf’s ears to catch in the din of the room, and just French enough to be unintelligible to the other wolves, “When I left, there were  _twelve wolves_  on this team not including me, or Z down in Rochester,  _plus_  Otter and Enzo who both knew about wolves – well, Enzo sort of knew at the time. It took him a while to figure out what he knew. But we had twelve wolves –  _twelve_  – and now…”

“They’re all gone,” Marty murmured.

“Yeah.” Jason rubbed a hand over his mouth, eyes still pinned on the three wolves left on the team – two of whom hadn’t even been drafted yet when he’d been traded. “Yeah. They’re all gone.”

Every team experienced some turnover, and of course it would therefore be the same for a pack, but Marty was sure it was jarring to leave a team for four years and come back to see that the largest pack in the league had quite literally disintegrated and disappeared.

“They’re good kids, though,” Marty said, because somebody had to say it.

“Oh, of course. I love ‘em. It’s just…” He shook his head. “It’s a lot.”

Marty thought carefully about his next words.

“You know,” he said slowly. “Back when Dom left the team, I thought that was it. Game over, no more team, no more pack, everyone shut it down and go home. I couldn’t imagine how we could all keep going and survive without him.”

Jason laughed a little. “That’s because you had to be the starter.”

“Well  _yeah_ , and I wanted to be the starter, but those were big skates to fill! And Miro was a great alpha, he’d already been a great beta, but we all knew even he was a little nervous about taking charge after someone like Dom. It was like we all had to learn who we were and how we functioned without him leading us. And these boys…they’re tough. They’ve had to do it again and again, as a pack, as a team. You don’t survive something like that and still come out smiling unless you’re pretty damn special.”

He knew Jason knew that, there was no way he couldn’t, but it bore repeating out loud, early and often, until everyone got it through their heads and it became second nature: this pack was special, this team was special. Once they built up some confidence, they’d all be a lot better for it.

The next summer was a whirlwind of trades and roster moves, and on paper the Buffalo Sabres were looking like a damn good team, though only time would tell. They only picked up one wolf, but Marty was particularly excited for that acquisition, because Carter Hutton was a goalie, and Carter Hutton was a wolf, and Carter Hutton was  _weird_.

Marty was thrilled.

“It’s an honor to meet another member of the Goaltenders’ Union,” he told Carter when they first met.

“I’m honored to be here,” Carter had replied, shaking his hand. Then he’d looked around them to see if anyone was listening; finding nobody, he’d smiled cheerfully and said, “I’m gonna need you to tell it to me straight: in an average week, how often does this pack share a bed? Because Steve Ott said it was nearly every night on the road when he was here, which is sort of what I’m used to, but Rob Bortuzzo got real cagey if anyone got up in his space too often – I don’t think he got cuddled enough as a pup, but that’s Pittsburgh, y'know? I’m just trying to figure out what the league norm is.”

Marty had just smiled and smiled. “Oh, man, you’re gonna fit in great here.”

And he did fit in great. The whole team fit together fantastically, and they were  _winning games_ , and the whole feeling in the franchise – no, in the city was that things had finally changed for the better. The rebuild was finally paying off, the pieces were clicking into place, and the Buffalo Sabres were actually,  _finally_  heading towards something good.

Marty and Duffer didn’t go on a lot of road trips anymore since they’d been assigned to their new studio back in Buffalo, but they went on part of the first big western road trip, catching up with the team in Vegas and following them through to California.

And so Marty was there after the team beat Anaheim, knowing they were coming off the road trip having won three in five, in some of the cities where they’d always struggled to find a win.

It had been Carter himself who’d knocked on Marty’s door, the man of the hour, the city’s burgeoning favorite, with two bottles of beer in his hands and a huge smile on his face.

“C'mon,” he’d said. “Everyone’s going to Pommer’s room. We got three in five, we have the next three days off, and I got the win. Goaltenders’ Union rules say that means you have to listen to me when I tell you that you have to come.”

He waved one of the bottles in front of Marty’s face, as if Marty really needed encouragement in the first place.

Marty took one picture that night, of the half-drunk wolves strewn out across Pommer’s room. Jason himself was still human, sitting at the head of the bed with a drink in hand. Rasmus, with the constitution of a slab of granite, was still going even though he had a truly unholy number of bottles piled up next to him. Carter had made the loud proclamation that “old drunk goalies need their beauty sleep” and had promptly shifted and passed out at the foot of the bed. Sam was shifted and curled up next to him, but they all knew he was a lightweight. Zemgus was the only shifted wolf still awake, curled up at Jason’s side and nosing him every few minutes if Jason stopped petting him.

Sitting in an armchair off to the side, Marty took a photo of that scene and he texted it to Ryan. Maybe it would smart a little bit, seeing as they’d just beaten Ryan that night, but he was pretty sure that Ryan would appreciate it regardless.

 _Party pack_ , he captioned it.

Ryan must have still been awake, because he replied seconds later.

_Told you, you’re supposed to be the strict alpha, Jason’ll just get the kids drunk._

_That was Carter. I’m happy being drunk fun uncle wolf._

And then, a few seconds later he added something else, just because he was drunk and it was past midnight and he’d always been able to push things a little bit with Ryan.

_Besides, we have to keep the strict alpha spot open for you._

_I’m happy in California._

_I was happy in New York. Just saying, Buffalo’s always home, if you want it._

He almost wasn’t sure Ryan would respond, after a few minutes with nothing, but then, just as Marty was dozing off…

 _We’ll see. Now shut up and go to bed, drunk fun uncle_.

_I don’t remember raising you to be this rude._

_Who do you think I learned it from?_

And, well, Marty couldn’t argue with that.

He lounged back in his chair, surveyed the pack again, and smiled.

It didn’t matter how much time passed or where they went – Marty loved the Sabres pack.


	62. Predators: Cold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompted: What do werewolves do in the cold? Do the huddle inside or leave melting snow trailed around the house? (Congratulations on ten years of fanfic!)
> 
> 11/23/18

“You have fur, you know.  I don’t feel bad for you.”

The wolf in front of him let out a particularly pathetic whine.

“I’m serious.  It’s like, less than an inch of snow.  You can barely feel it.  Just stand up.”

A groan, and then the wolf rolled over on its side and stared up at him balefully.

“Yeah, no, that’s not going to work.  You were perfectly capable of not going out in the snow if you didn’t want to be in the snow.  You did this to yourself.”

The wolf whimpered sadly and wagged just the very tip of his tail.

“Dude.  Literally just stand up and shift and I’ll let you use the shower to warm up. Otherwise your loser ass has to stay out here until you get yourself dry –  _which would be a lot quicker and warmer if you shifted_.”

A dramatic flop in the other direction, complete with kicking legs out in protest.

“Yeah, except no.  This is has nothing to do with respecting your goalie and everything to do with  _you_  respecting  _my hardwood floors_  and also I’m your alpha? Doesn’t that mean you’re supposed to listen to me?”

Cue disgusting snorting sound like he was trying not to laugh.

“Okay, well listen to this: I am going inside now. So you can stay out here in your quickly-melting pile of slush, and when you get yourself two-legged enough to operate a doorknob, you are welcome to come inside and warm up.  Unless and until then, you’re on your own.”

One long, loud, drawn out whine as he stepped onto the deck and put a hand on the door.

“I’m serious.  One.  Two. Thr-”

Before James could say three, a chilled-yet-warm,  _oh God he’s so naked_ weight slammed against his back and wrapped its arms around his waist.

“Nealer I’m so  _cold_ ,” Carter whined, burying his nose in James’s hair.

James yelped as a cold nose brushed against his neck and squirmed against Carter’s grip.  “Oh, God, get off me, man!  You’re freezing and also what did I say about nudity and grabbing at me?”

Carter hooked his chin over James’s shoulder. “You like it, you love it, you want some more of it?”

“Wh- oh, fuck off!” Despite his struggling, he couldn’t actually get Carter to let go unless Carter felt like letting go, and so James took the easier route and opened the door, stumbling into the warm rush of air and dragging Carter with him.

Finally, with enough well-placed elbows, Carter finally backed off.  James manfully kept his gaze well-above waist-height.

“As your alpha I’m ordering you to put some clothes on.”

Carter batted his eyes at him.  “But  _Alpha_ , aren’t you going to give me a bath first?  You  _promised_.”

“No, I said you could use the shower, but right now I’m thinking you deserve to be cold and wet because you-”

“You like ‘em wet, do you?”

“ _Ew_  oh my God, shut up, why are you like this, does Pekka know you’re like this?”

Goose chose that moment to walk in, took one look at the scene in front of him, and said, “Aw, shit, are we taking our clothes off now?”

He was already grabbing for the hem of his shirt.

James decided that discretion really was the better part of valor, and barricaded himself in his own bedroom until everyone else agreed to at least put pants on.

Lundqvist probably didn’t have to deal with this bullshit.


	63. Rangers: All Hail the King, or How Maz Goes to New York

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompted: Hi! Dunno if you have anything about alpha!Sedins or Lundqvist? I know you've referenced them a few times in the werewolf detective au but I really just want to know more...
> 
> Finally someone asked for Lundqvist fic! I’m actually surprised it never came about sooner with how much he gets name-dropped. (I ended up going that route because looking back I don’t really like the way the Sedins came out in these fics, I think I came up with their pack’s conceptualization without knowing the team well enough to set it up the way I did and in retrospect the Sedins would be nothing like that. So, I’m going with Lundqvist here.)
> 
> Set in December 2017 when Marek Mazanec signed a deal with the New York Rangers and was almost instantly assigned to the AHL’s Hartford Wolf Pack. May contain many typos because I’m half asleep, but I was able to keep from spoiling any of the third Nashville fic, so there’s that.
> 
> 11/24/18

Marek thought it was pretty funny, when the Rangers sent him down to play for the AHL’s Hartford Wolf Pack.  The guys all found it to be entertaining, to say the least.

“Man, it’s like they  _know_ ,” James had said over Skype, Marek’s first night in Hartford. His mouth was, predictably, full as he was speaking, and the t-shirt he was wearing was visibly stained, and Marek missed his alpha with a sort of fierce desperation that he hadn’t felt since the expansion draft.  Part of him wished he was still back in Milwaukee, or better yet Nashville, because even though he knew that Nealer was gone and Carter was gone and Goose had retired and Shea had been traded, it was still familiar, still felt like home, and Nashville still had Calle and Joey and Juuse.

But Marek was in Hartford now, and he was the only wolf on the team, just like he’d been in Milwaukee once Rich was gone to Toronto and Juuse started spending half the year backing up Pekka in Nashville.  And just like when Marek was in Milwaukee, his alpha played for the parent team.

And unlike when he played for the Predators organization, Hartford was only a two hour drive or train ride to New York City, making visiting the main pack a lot easier.

And also unlike when he played for the Predators, the alpha of the Rangers pack expected Marek to make a formal appearance to introduce himself to the pack.

Marek knew this, because he received a cream-colored linen envelope delivered to his hotel room containing a matching note instructing him of a time and place to meet his new pack.  He’d have called it an invitation, except it had more of the air of a court summons than an RSVP for a party.

He hadn’t forgotten the stories everyone had told about Lundqvist – always referred to by his last name, with an air of warning around it.  Nealer seemed to think that Lundqvist was some sort of alpha ideal that he had to match up to, but anyone with eyes could see how everyone else recoiled at that idea. And after Lundqvist’s own twin brother had rejected Rich when he was struggling…

He didn’t know what to think.

His packmates all tried to make him feel better, of course, telling him that they’d heard good things, that Lundqvist was fair and honorable, that traditional styles weren’t bad, that it wouldn’t be like Shea all over again.

The more they tried to make him feel better, the worse it felt.  But he wanted to come back to North America, wanted another shot at the NHL, and New York was the only team to come calling.  Marek was in no place to turn down any offer he could get.

Besides, he took the offer knowing that he would be spending most of his time in Hartford.  Dealing with Lundqvist a handful of times wouldn’t be the end of the world.

Marek told himself that, but he was still nervous when the address he’d been given turned out to be for an intimidatingly expensive apartment building in Manhattan.  The doorman had to check his driver’s license and make a call to verify that he was a wanted guest before he allowed Marek to use the elevator.

It was a far cry from showing up unannounced on Nealer’s porch with his luggage and a pile of goalie sticks.  He didn’t think Lundqvist would be one for hugging at first sight, either.

He’d dressed well for the occasion, figuring that if the invitation was that proper, he’d be better off safe than sorry in one of his game day suits.  At the very least he could make a good first impression.

There was no denying that his palms were sweating as he waited for the elevator to arrive at the penthouse – and God, this guy lived in a  _penthouse_.

He was way out of his depth here.  Maybe that was the way Lundqvist wanted things, to show the power imbalance right from the start.  That would be a traditional sort of thing to do, right, to incorporate dominance displays into everything you did?

The elevator doors opened.

The first thing that Marek saw was  _white_.  White floors, white walls, white furniture.  The only thing that provided contrast was the darkness of the evening through the huge, floor-to-ceiling windows, completely unobscured by curtains. Maybe nobody had to worry about privacy, when they were this high up.

The second thing he saw was Lundqvist himself, and the suit had definitely been a good idea, because even Lundqvist’s idea of casual wear was intimidating.  He was wearing pressed slacks and a sweater which probably cost as much as Marek’s plane ticket from Slovakia.  His smile was handsome, debonair, and held the sort of easy confidence of someone who knew you were going to listen to him.

“Marek,” he said, stretching out a hand in greeting, “I’m Henrik.  Welcome to the pack.”

Marek’s eyes flicked only once between Lundqvist’s hand and his face – not his eyes, never his eyes.

He kept his hands at his sides, and tilted his head to the left, baring the side of his neck.

Lundqvist’s smile grew just a little bit sharper. Marek wouldn’t have noticed if he wasn’t trying so hard to avoid making eye contact.

So it had been a test.

The hand that Lundqvist had offered instead landed firmly on Marek’s neck, heavy enough that he would have flinched if he hadn’t been expecting it. Lundqvist’s grip was tight and sure, not a moment of hesitance as he slid his hand to the back of Marek’s neck and squeezed to hold him in place.

Marek kept perfectly still, afraid to do more than hold his breath as Lundqvist leaned in to run his nose along his neck.  When Lundqvist made a rumbling sound, he nearly jumped out of his skin; that rumble turned to a brief, quiet laugh against Marek’s neck.

“Did you have an alpha in Bratislava?” Lundqvist breathed in his ear

He went to shake his head but stopped himself, keeping his gaze straight ahead, not daring to move a muscle.  “Slovakia is like Czech, we do not have team packs, only family.”

Lundqvist made a noise of agreement, still scenting Marek’s neck and certainly taking his sweet time with it.

“And before that?”

Marek swallowed thickly and would have drawn away, if he’d thought he could get away with it.

“Shea Weber,” he said in a choked voice, because it was the truth, after a fact. Shea had been gone from Nashville for over a year, but there was no way Marek was betraying James’s trust, no matter how scared he was.

“Hmm.” A heavy inhale, drawing cool air over Marek’s neck.  “Over a year, that’s quite some time to go without an alpha.”

“In Milwaukee, there was no alpha.  Not very different.”

That was the truth, more or less.  He still talked to James all the time, but it was never quite the same as having an alpha right there on your team, accessible.

Lundqvist hummed.  “That may be, but I think you’ll find that things are a little different here.”

He squeezed the back of Marek’s neck then, hard and at just the right angle that he couldn’t stop himself from going limp and boneless, like a pup in its parent’s grip – or prey in a wolf’s jaws.

“Come on, the others are in the kitchen.  Shoes off first.”

He said it the way that you would to a child, and Marek followed along docilely, removing his shoes and neatly placing them near the door under Lundqvist’s watchful eyes, and then letting Lundqvist manhandle him as he saw fit to remove his suit coat.

It was a strange, uncomfortable feeling, to be so on edge and entirely under someone else’s control.

Lundqvist, at least, seemed quietly thrilled as he put a hand back on Marek’s neck and guided him towards what must have been the kitchen.

Zuccarello and Kreider were both there, looking far more at ease than Marek would have expected.  Both were dressed in somewhat more casual versions of Lundqvist’s outfit – Kreider was definitely wearing jeans, even if they looked like an expensive dark-wash – and they looked comfortable and at home, Kreider seated on a stool at the dark granite breakfast bar while Zuccarello leaned against the huge stainless steel fridge.

The slightest bit of tension drained from Marek’s shoulders.  If they were both that relaxed, then maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.

“Chris, Mats,” Lundqvist said, “This is Marek.”

They both smiled and greeted him, and it was still all Marek could do to smile back.  He didn’t notice how stiff he was until he was already relaxing under the hand kneading his neck.

“Go sit down,” he whispered in Marek’s ear, even though the others could undoubtedly hear him.  “I’m making dinner.”

There was nothing that Marek could do but comply, carefully perching on a stool next to Kreider.  He was glad he’d foregone a tie, because he didn’t need any more pressure on his neck when he could still feel the imprint of Lundqvist’s hand.

Kreider nudged him with his knee, watching him with a goofy smile.  “Hey, man, you don’t have to be so worried.  We don’t bite or anything, honest.”

“I bite,” Zuccarello said, and his smile was fittingly sharp.  He held up a bottle of wine in Marek’s direction, but Marek shook his head.

“No, thank you,” he murmured, eyes sliding down to the shiny flecks in the granite.  “Just, ah, water, please?”

Zuccarello nodded and exchanged the wine glass for a drinking glass, clearly appearing at home in his alpha’s space.  That had to bode well, right?  The pack wouldn’t be so comfortable here if they didn’t spend any time here.

He wiped his palms against his pants, hoping they’d stop feeling so clammy sometime soon.

The others fell into an easy conversation around him about whatever was going on with the Rangers, something about who was really behind the packing peanuts in Hayes’s stall.  It was something that required minimal input from Marek, and he was fairly sure they were doing it on purpose, letting the conversation flow over him without making him feel like he was being ignored.

He was listening to Kreider’s ridiculous laugh over some story Zuccarello was telling when a big, warm hand settled on the top of his head, drawing Marek’s gaze up from the countertop he’d continued to examine. In a fit of forgetfulness Marek’s eyes continued moving up until they made contact with Lundqvist’s; with a bitten-off gasp he quickly averted his gaze again, but not before Lundqvist gave a huffed laugh and moved his hand soothingly over Marek’s hair.

“Calm,” he said lowly, continuing to pet over Marek’s hair even while watching the other two. “Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

And…oh.  That might explain a lot, actually, if they thought that Shea had been his last alpha, especially Shea alone.  The testing, the firm dominance but gentle touch, letting Marek ease himself into the conversation…all things to put at ease a wolf who may have gone through years of suffering under an angry alpha in a broken pack.

That wasn’t who Marek was at all, seeing as he’d never been in a team pack without James before – he wasn’t lying when he said that James was quite literally his first non-family alpha – but the Rangers had no way of knowing that.  As far as they were aware, Shea was possibly unhinged and Marek had spent his few trips to Nashville in fear of reprisal.

They probably had no clue that he was actually terrified of what he’d heard about  _them_.

For the first time that night, he pushed back into the hand on his head and gave a small smile.

“Sorry.  I know that.”

Lundqvist’s teeth were sharp and very white, but his smile was, as predicted, very nice.

It felt all the better to know that his new alpha was pleased with him.

“Dinner is almost ready.  Hopefully you know how to set a table better than Chris.”

It was light and teasing and definitely an order, but Marek found that he didn’t mind heeding it.  It wasn’t climbing over his packmates to steal pieces of James’s famous frozen pizza from each other, or shifting between forms at the drop of a dime to try to garner James’s favor, but it was a different kind of nice.

It was sedate, and calm, and warm, and Marek liked being able to do something small that made an alpha as powerful as Lundqvist smile at him and thank him and compliment his efforts.

When he excused himself to go to the bathroom after dinner, Marek pulled out his phone and sent a text to Nealer.

_I think I’m gonna be alright._

Within seconds Nealer sent back emojis of a wolf, a thumbs-up, and a heart.

Marek smiled and put his phone back in his pocket.


	64. Sabres: Ullmark's POV, #streaking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompted: I absolutely adore your wolf verse and would love to read something sweet about the Buffalo pack!
> 
> What can I say, I like outside POVs! A very human Linus Ullmark makes a few observations following Buffalo’s NINTH WIN IN A ROW!!!
> 
> 11/25/18

The Buffalo Sabres were not a good hockey team.  They weren’t back when Linus was drafted in 2012 (in the sixth round, perhaps, but goaltenders rarely went high), and they weren’t in 2014 when he signed his first contract with them. In 2017 the Sabres were in the bottom five in the league, and Linus signed a new contract with them.  He played parts of three seasons in Buffalo and Rochester, and neither was very good, though at least Rochester managed to make the playoffs last year, even if they were swept in the first round.

This was all to say, even if this was Linus’s first year as a full-time member of the Buffalo Sabres, he was more than familiar with the organization and its history, and at this point he felt pretty comfortable saying that the Buffalo Sabres were not a good hockey team.

Or at least, they didn’t used to be.

Then November came, and the Sabres won, and won, and won, until the next thing they knew they were the best team in the league riding a nine-game win streak the likes of which nobody but Pommer had seen before, back in the day when the Sabres won the Presidents’ Trophy and everybody knew that the Sabres were a good team.

And maybe it was because a lot of the guys on the team were young, or new, and barely anyone on the team had even been drafted the last time the Sabres were good, but the guys were all riding high after the game.  Some of them…more than others.

He could sort of get it with Sam.  Sam was a pretty happy guy in general, but after scoring the winning goal in a seven-round shootout, he was nearly through the roof, bouncing off his teammates, hugging everyone in sight, doing some kind of weird nuzzling thing where he kept pressing his face against everyone’s sweaty necks, which looked really gross, except Sam had the kind of blissed out look that meant he was definitely enjoying it.

As the person who’d only allowed one goal in that seven-round shootout after making thirty-five saves, Linus was pretty psyched himself, but he still didn’t want to rub up on anyone’s sweat more than he had to.

Maybe it was a Canadian thing.  Don Cherry did always say that Europeans just didn’t understand how real teammates behaved, after all.

He could understand it with Sam.  Sam was a weirdo on a good day, anyway.

And it wasn’t so strange for Pommer to be going around doling out head-pats and shoulder-squeezes and hugs, because he already acted like everyone’s dad, and he had that sort of air around him that Linus thought maybe all former captains had, like the captaincy never totally left you even after you’d handed off the C to someone else.

But he was pretty sure that Zemgus wasn’t usually so quick to manhandle people like that, especially not when he was in a suit after being scratched for the game, and he definitely didn’t usually growl while flopping all over Skinny.

All of that was weird enough, but things definitely took a turn for the bizarre when Risto straight-up licked Sam, like full tongue all up the side of his face, and Sam beamed at him like absolutely nothing could have made him happier.

Thankfully he wasn’t the only person to notice that, because Bogo slapped a hand on Risto’s shoulder and said, “Whoa, dude, at least wait until you’re drunk for that one.”

“I brought a rope,” Sam said brightly, utterly ignoring Bogo, but Risto perked up like this was fantastic news.

“What kind of rope?” Kyle looked morbidly fascinated, but also like he wasn’t sure he really wanted to know that kind of truth about his teammates.

Linus wanted to know.

He should have expected it, when Pommer slid in smoothly and put a hand on Risto and Sam’s shoulders.  “I think we’re all just getting a little punch drunk, eh, boys? Best team in the league!”

That set off another round of screaming, and everyone was in good enough spirits to forget that in their excitement their teammates had progressed to licking each other to show affection.

Linus was a goaltender, and it was his job to be observant at all times, so maybe that was why he was the only one to keep watching as Pommer shook the other two by their shoulders, gently, but firmly enough that they visibly moved with it. He ducked his head and said something to them that Linus couldn’t make out over all the shouting, but they both looked suitably chastised, and a moment later Zemgus came over to join them, obscuring Linus’s view.

Maybe he would have moved closer to try to hear more, if he was feeling particularly nosy, but that was when a warm arm was hooked around Linus’s neck and he was yanked down into Hutts’s notably bare side.

“There’s my favorite little Minion,” he cooed, scrubbing a hand over Linus’s hair. “That was one of the most beautiful shootouts I’ve ever seen in my life, look at you!”

His face was pressed up close against the top of Linus’s head, enough so that Linus could feel his mouth move as he spoke.  And maybe it was a little too prolonged for normal bro behavior, and maybe on a normal day Linus might think it was a little weird for his goalie partner to be cuddling him to his chest and petting his head and muttering praise into his hair.

But this wasn’t a normal day, because today, the Buffalo Sabres were the number one team in the NHL, and they had won nine games in a row, and right now, they could do whatever they wanted and nobody was going to bat an eye.

Linus huffed happily and leaned into Hutts’s chest.

They were goalies anyways.  Everybody knew that goalies were a special breed of their own.

Besides, wasn’t yesterday the full moon or something? Everyone always said that people got weird around a full moon.


	65. Sharks: Alpha

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompted: I would love to read anything about the sharks pack, maybe like the first time one of them called Joner the alpha. Thank you!
> 
> 12/8/18

The stupidest thing was that it happened during an interview where Logan all but outed the pack as werewolves for the entire internet to see.

“What do you have to say about the leadership role that Martin Jones has with this team?”

Logan would entirely admit that he was exhausted even with the win, and his brain was definitely functioning on autopilot…a little too auto.

“Oh for sure, y'know, he’s a big figure with this team, he’s the alpha of the pack, everyone listens to him.”

There was a slight pause from the interviewers around him, and then suddenly phones and recorders were being shoved a few inches closer to Logan’s face.

“I’m sorry, could you please elaborate on that?” someone asked, while at the same time someone was saying, “What does ‘alpha of the pack’ mean to you?”

As if summoned, Logan could see Joner on the other side of the dressing room, watching him with that blank expression that could spell doom or mean that Joner was doing the equivalent of playing mental elevator music. You never really did know with him until he spoke up and told you.

But Deller was next to him, hand clenched in the front of his own t-shirt as if to keep himself from physically reacting, and if Deller had heard, then Joner definitely had.

“Oh, yeah, y'know. He’s just a great leader for this team, everyone centers around him. Y'know. Like an alpha, except…Sharks.”

Logan wasn’t sure what kind of groups Sharks traveled in, or if they traveled in groups at all, but he was sure all the local news would be telling him in the evening broadcast.

Thankfully he’d been repetitive enough that they’d started to lose interest, and he was able to wrap up his interview with a few more equally bland responses. By then most of the locker room had cleared out, leaving him alone with Jonesy and Deller, who were quite clearly waiting up just for him.

“So. I hear I’m the alpha, eh?”

Joner stretched his neck to the side as if trying to remove a crick in his neck, and maybe if Logan was a human he’d actually believe that it was a human gesture and not an obvious flaunt of power and position. An actual submission would involve holding yourself vulnerable with your neck exposed at an alpha’s mercy. Flashing your neck briefly like that was a tease, used either to flirt, or as a light challenge asking someone if they were going to question your authority.

Considering Logan didn’t think he and Jonesy were flirting, it was probably the latter.

But it was still Joner, and he was still a big dork, even if he put on the scary shark eyes sometimes, and so Logan slumped down next to him and lightly pushed him with his shoulder.

“Yeah, you know you’re the king of the wolf boyfriends,” he muttered.

He didn’t have to be looking to know that Joner was smiling as he knocked his head against Logan’s and ran a hand up Logan’s back to his neck, squeezing briefly and letting go.

The imprint of his hand stayed warm long after he removed his grip.

Joner was still Joner, alpha or not.

As long as they didn’t have to start calling him Daddy, they’d be fine.

That title was already taken, after all.


	66. Paulie/Nealer, Kids

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompted: If you’re still taking prompts can we have thing focused around James with a child. Not his of course! Just like oh hey hold this and everyone is like oh no! Who gave the man child an actual child.
> 
> It’s been sort of mentioned before in some of the wolf fics I think that James is actually supposed to be really good with little kids. So this became a wolf fic. All relatives are fictional as per usual.
> 
> 12/9/18

Nobody ever believed James when he said that he was good with kids.

“Of course you are, Nealer, you all function at the same intellectual level,” was usually the answer he received in one form or another.

Even Paulie, who knew that James was the oldest of five and had a gaggle of younger cousins, still seemed to think that just because James had to put a lot of effort into keeping a potted plant alive, it meant he didn’t know how to care for a baby.

“I literally just need you to hold him for two minutes,” Paul’s sister had said, bundling her six month old baby into James’s arms. She was already starting to strip as she was speaking, meaning James had to make an abrupt about-face while holding said baby to avoid getting an eyeful of his almost-sister-in-law that he was never meant to see.

He couldn’t see Meghan, but he certainly could see the frown on Paul’s face as he eyed James holding the baby.

“Are you sure that’s such a good idea?” he said slowly, and okay,  _ow_ , that one fucking hurt. James expected it from people who didn’t know him, but  _Paulie_?

From the way Paulie was also starting to avert his eyes, Meghan had probably gotten pretty darn naked. She said, “Just put Nicky in his crib if you can’t hold him, that’s fine too.”

Then a russet brown wolf that looked like a smaller version of Paulie was diving off the back deck and running into the forest. Paul shot James a few nervous looks before he finally started stripping too. Normally James would enjoy watching Paul disrobe in front of him, but given the circumstances, and that Paul looked perennially worried, and that James was holding an infant, the allure was entirely lost.

“Just…sit down while you hold him?” Paul begged, and then he was shifting too and following after his sister. Meghan’s husband and the elder Martins had already gone off into the woods, all in search of Meghan’s three year old daughter Jenna. Apparently wolf cubs her age – like the actual cubs, the chubby little furballs that could barely walk a straight line without falling down – had a tendency to shift at a moment’s notice, and once they shifted, they pretty much forgot every rule they’d ever been taught about not wandering off. Right now the full Martin family was on high alert searching for their wayward cub who’d trundled off into the woods behind Paul’s parents’ house, and James had been left holding the family baby.

The baby who, apparently, none of them trusted James to take care of even for a few minutes.

Nice. That sure was a good way to make a guy feel welcome to the family.

“You know what, buddy?” James cooed. “Screw them, we’re going to have a great time.”

It ended up taking them over half an hour to locate Jenna. When the whole pack came back into the yard, Meghan had Jenna hanging guiltily from her jaws, walking with the stiff gait of a mother who was banning her child from accessing the outside world for the next decade.

“C'mon, Nicky,” James said, “Let’s keep you from getting scarred for life from having to see all of your relatives naked.”

Nicky batted at the side of his face, and James took it to mean that he agreed. They were in the kitchen when Paul and Meghan trooped back in. James had Nicky installed in his high chair and was in the process of feeding him some sort of disgustingly green pea-mush, which Nicky seemed to think was absolutely delicious, seeing as he started whining when James paused in feeding him.

“Is everything okay?” James asked. He offered Nicky another spoon. Nicky ate it like he was starving, which would make sense seeing as half of what he ate was falling right back out of his mouth.

Meghan had a strange, calculating look about her as she leaned down and sniffed her son. At this point James didn’t even blink twice; if she wanted to risk sniffing a baby that closely, that was her prerogative.

“Did you change his diaper?”

James wondered if he should take offense at how surprised she sounded. “Well, yeah, it was wet. I wasn’t going to just leave him like that. He’s fine, now, should be all good for a little while. But then he was getting a little squirrely, and when my boys get that way it usually means they’re hangry, so I thought I’d feed him. He seems to like it?”

He wasn’t sure what it was that he’d said, but the look Meghan was giving him was a little too intense for James’s comfort.

Finally she put a hand on his shoulder, looked James in the eyes, and said, “Paul’s an idiot for not locking you down sooner, and I’m sorry.”

Then she tossed over her shoulder, “Paul, you’re an idiot,” before turning back to James.

“I love you, and you are welcome to come to my house at any time and convince my son to eat solid foods, because this is the first time he’s ever eaten without actively trying to spit the food out.”

“But- most of it’s not even staying in his mouth-”

“I don’t care. This is amazing. Don’t let Paul ruin this.”

She turned back to Paul again and added, “Don’t you ruin this, Paul!”

Meghan kissed the top of her son’s head, patted James’s cheek, and went back to the living room to scold her daughter.

Paulie was looking a little shell-shocked, but James felt the same way.

“Uhhh…”

Paul was just watching him, shaking his head in disbelief. But he had that little smile at the edge of his mouth that let James know that it was a good thing.

“I keep saying I’m not going to underestimate you, and then I do it all over again,” Paul said. “Next time, just tell me I’m being a dumbass instead of letting me be a jerk to you. You’re clearly more than capable of taking care of a baby.”

As he spoke he was edging closer to James, nostrils flaring as he clearly scented James and the baby. James would have thought it was kind of gross, because those mushy peas smelled gross to him and could have only been worse for a wolf, but Paul was turning the kind of red that usually meant good things for James, and his voice was taking on that grumbly tone that it got when he…

“…Paulie, are you seriously getting turned on right now?”

It had to have been pretty bad because Paul didn’t even try to deny it, rumbling deep in his chest as he pressed his nose into James’s neck and wrapped an arm around his waist.

“Paulie. Paulie, I’m feeding a baby and my arms are covered in vomit-colored mush and spit. Are you seriously telling me that this is what gets your weird little wolfy biological clock all revved up?”

Paul just kissed his neck, soft and barely there. “You’d be a good dad. I’m sorry if I ever doubted you.”

And okay, that made James’s chest feel all warm and tingly too.

“Well. Thank you. That actually means a lot. But it still doesn’t change that we’re watching a baby right now, so we’re going to need to shelve this whatever-this-is for another time.”

After a moment he patted Paul’s hand on his hip and said, “Think of it as practice for all of the cock-blocking that comes with having a real baby.”

The worst part was that Paul actually seemed excited by that.

Well. Whatever floated his kinky little werewolf boat.


	67. Predators/Flames: Favorite Pup

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompted: What happens the first time someone (besides James) calls themselves James's favorite pup in front of Calle? Is there a tantrum or just sulking?
> 
> This takes place on 12/8/18 when the Preds came to Calgary.
> 
> 12/10/18

By the time Calle was twenty-seven, James thought he was in the clear. Twenty-seven was definitely a good age for all young wolves to have developed into mature, functional adults. Calle had been doing well back in Nashville with Juuse and Joey – hell, he’d actually taken Juuse under his wing in the end, after all of James’s fears about potential jealousy.

Calle had really grown up, and James couldn’t have been more proud of him.

That pride had made James complacent.

It was the only excuse he could use to explain why he didn’t see it coming.

The first two games Calgary played against Nashville went just fine. Well, not when they lost the second one, but the visits surrounding the games were fine. It made sense, though: Calle and Elias were cousins and got along swimmingly, and their little wolfy reunions put everyone else at ease with each other. Seeing as Elias already knew James had been the alpha in Nashville, there was none of the worry about whether it was safe to expose his secret that he’d experienced in Vegas.

Elias greeted him as pack on day one, and the other guys were young enough to shrug it off and follow suit.

Given the family connection between their packs, and James’s history in Nashville, their two packs had gotten along very well. It was only October then, and so James had spent most of the time catching up with his packmates and friends from Nashville and not so much focusing on introducing his new and old packs.

(Not that he would ever really consider anyone to be “old” pack, but, y'know,  _semantics_.)

It was also true that James himself was still learning his new packmates back in October, figuring out how a human not-alpha fit in there, just as his packmates did the same.

By December, all of those little idiots were cozying up to James as if they’d known him forever. And once Paul rolled into town and settled in to stay, it was like they’d somehow signaled to the pack that there was a stable adult presence about. Now that James could finally enjoy spending every day waking up to his husband, he also had to contend with waking up to find an inexplicably shirtless Sean Monahan in his bed, asking if someone would make him pancakes.

James got used to it pretty quickly, and that probably should have been more distressing than it felt.

Taking care of a pack that way was old hat by now, and so James really didn’t think anything of it when the Predators came to town and the Nashville pack came to visit at his house.

The boys were talking about something that Johnny’s dad had said during the fathers’ trip. Johnny was blushing as the others laughed, and James had mostly tuned it out, leaning into Paul’s side as he talked to Joey, and then Mony’s words drifted over the rest of the conversation.

“Johnny’s such a daddy’s boy,” he teased, rubbing a hand over Johnny’s hair. “We all know he’s Nealer’s favorite pup.”

Maybe James really had gotten too complacent, because he wouldn’t have even thought twice about it if Joey’s eyes hadn’t gone wide.

The distressing part about Joey picking up on it was that Joey hadn’t even been there for the worst of Calle’s…behaviors.

So if Joey thought it was bad…

James almost didn’t want to look over at Calle, but it had to be done. Especially when he had Paul nearly squeezing him in a headlock trying to angle him in that direction. God but that man knew how to ruin a cuddle.

Calle’s posture was tight. He was still smiling, but it was left over on his face like he’d forgotten to remove it when he’d vacated his body. His eyes were staring forward blankly, all of his tension sunk down to his hands twisted in the fabric of his pants.

The boys were still laughing, all except for Elias, who was sending his cousin some sidelong glances.

It only took a few seconds to brace himself. James was ready for the blow-up. He hadn’t forgotten how badly Calle dealt with blending the Nashville and San Jose packs, especially when he’d thought that Tomas or Melker or Timo were somehow getting too much of James’s attention. It was something they’d worked on a lot over the years, getting Calle to a point where he not only recognized what was an acceptable way to interact with “interlopers” but also to where he felt secure and confident enough not to flip his shit every time James smiled at a wolf from another pack.

They’d come a long way since that first year in Nashville, but right now Calle looked poised to dive for Johnny’s throat.

Calle’s fists clenched for just a moment, and then he released them, smoothing his palms over the wrinkled fabric of his pants. He heaved out a loud, gusty sigh, and his face almost looked like it was smiling.

Well. That had gone…better than expected.

“You’re his favorite pup?”

Or maybe not.

Johnny denied it of course, but because he was embarrassed instead of because of the perfectly valid counterstatement that James didn’t believe in having favorites, and if he did have a favorite, it was probably Paul, at least, like, fifty percent of the time.

The way that Johnny started to stutter almost would have been cute if James wasn’t busy wondering if he would have to hold Calle back from trying to cut a bitch.

He could feel Paul tense next to him as Calle stood up and reached a hand out towards Johnny. James was already starting to stand up himself, an excuse to get Calle out of the room already on the tip of his tongue, when Calle reached out and gently patted the side of Johnny’s face.

Smiling serenely, he said, “I am the original pup. Never forget that.”

With that he exited the room, leaving behind a thoroughly confused Johnny. Elias, doing some strange rendition of what could only be called a concerned eye roll, got up and followed after him.

James exchanged glances with Paul and Joey.

“You know, I think that was actually really well-adjusted of him.”

“No, that was good,” Joey agreed.

Paul nodded and patted James’s thigh. “He really has grown up.”

“Excuse me?” Mony raised his hand, face pinched in a frown. “Can I ask what that was?”

“That,” James said, “Was character growth.”


	68. Rangers: Pack Bonding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompted: yeah okay i'd give my left tit for more alpha!lundqvist content.
> 
> Inspired by [this gifset](https://swedishgoaliemafia.tumblr.com/post/182337632409/i-hate-hockey-hank-is-stoked-for-cam-asg-2019) and Chris Kreider’s face in general.
> 
> 1/30/19

Really, Chris should have known better. And he did know better. He knew what was going to happen as soon as he’d sent the text, so really the whole thing was an exercise in futility.

_Come over today after practice,_  Hank had sent that morning.

Chris would blame it on the fact that it was early and hadn’t had his coffee yet and was also horking down a bagel while trying to get ready to go, because he replied,  _Sorry man I have lunch plans with Hayesy can we reschedule?_

He wanted to smack himself as soon as he sent it, because he’d known Hank long enough to know that he wasn’t going to get what he wanted here. Sure, Hank liked words like “reschedule” and he was always supportive of anything that could be qualified as bonding with your teammates, but the one thing he absolutely did not do was let his pack dictate his plans.

It came as no surprise when he didn’t get a response to that text, but Chris couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or not.

Practice made him start to feel a little edgy, if only because he was still kicking himself for sending that text, and Hank had done nothing to acknowledge it. Chris was entirely sure that he had, but it would be just like Hank to pretend that you didn’t send him a message that he didn’t plan on validating with a response because he expected you to already know better.

Use it as a learning experience or something like that.

Hank acted like nothing was off, but Zucc clearly noticed that Chris was on edge, because he went out of his way to smack him in the shins with his stick. When Chris looked over at him, he raised an eyebrow in question.

Chris tried to subtly indicate with his face how he was feeling uneasy about Hank, but based on Zucc’s expression it probably came out far less subtle than he was aiming for.

Back when Chris first started with the team, people were asking him all the time if he was feeling okay or if he needed to see a trainer. After being with the team for this long, they all just knew that was what his face looked like sometimes. Hank would just pat his head and smile and say he was “very expressive” with the same sort of fondness that one used to talk about their four year old’s shitty crayon drawing.

Maybe Chris was Hank’s shitty crayon drawing. Hmm. He’d have to readdress that one later.

The sucky part was when Hayesy grabbed him after practice with that dumb smile of his.

“Hey, so there’s this new Mexican place over on-”

Chris interrupted him, knowing he was already wearing his remorse on his face. “I’m sorry, I can’t.”

Hayesy frowned. “I mean, I guess we could go somewhere else…”

“No, like, I have a thing. That came up. A different thing, and I have to go deal with that thing.”

He felt worse with every word, watching Hayesy’s eyes narrow. It wasn’t like them getting lunch together was a big deal or something out of the ordinary, but he still felt like shit for cancelling at the last second.

But even though he knew Hank’s eyes weren’t following him – Hank was never that obvious – Chris swore he could viscerally  _feel_  Hank tracking him around the room, keeping tabs. Making sure Chris was doing what he was supposed to.

It had been a long time since Chris had disobeyed a direct order, and he wasn’t keen on doing it again anytime soon.

“A thing,” Haysey repeated, voice scorchingly dry.

“Yeah. An obligation. Sorry, I can’t put it off.”

For as much as people talked up Chris’s education he did a shit job of trying to think up a reasonable excuse on the spot. Of course, Hayesy had also gone to college and had actually finished his degree program, so it wasn’t like he was stupid enough to fall for Chris’s bullshit anyway.

Fuck, he should have just said he didn’t feel well.

But Hayesy had also known him long enough that he kind of understood Chris’s particular brand of freak, so he just snorted and shook his head. “Whatever, man, another time I guess.”

Chris would have been worried he was upset, but then Hayesy facewashed him with his own glove so he was probably forgiven.

He still felt a little nervous heading over to Hank’s afterwards. Because he’d lingered in the dressing room after practice and dragged his feet about getting ready, he knew that Zucc would have beaten him there. Well, Zucc was most likely there – usually when Hank did this sort of thing it was a “pack” thing.

Unless he was mad at Chris about something and needed to speak to him privately. He couldn’t think of anything – other than asking if they could reschedule, and that would just be a minor irritation – but then again, if Hank was mad at someone, he didn’t often express it right away. He would wait for the right time, away from the team, away from other pack members if need be.

So…a situation just like this.

But Chris hadn’t done anything wrong. He was over-thinking it. Hah, there was that college brain reporters were always talking about!

It was a cold comfort as he arrived at Hank’s building.

Chris hadn’t really bothered to get dressed up – this wasn’t an “occasion,” after all, or Hank would have given more notice than that. He still felt a little nervous going up to Hank’s, even though he’d been there countless times before. Once he was there he’d be fine – once he knew what was going on.

Hank was usually pretty predictable, which was good because he also had a tendency to be unreadable at times. In those situations it was best to just fall back on instinct – do whatever your alpha wanted to make them happy.

The doorman knew Chris well by now, and immediately called Hank to let him know Chris had arrived. A moment later he was gesturing Chris to the elevator.

It was possible for Hank to get spare keys made for Chris and Mats to circumvent that routine, but none of them ever mentioned it. If Hank wanted them to have keys, he’d have done it by now.

Besides. Chris secretly thought that Hank got a kick out of being able to be there to greet every person who entered his home. Something about letting everyone know who was the master of that domain.

And there he was as the doors opened, waiting for Chris with his hands clasped behind his back and a hint of a smile on his face.

Smile was good. Smile meant that Chris could let his shoulders relax, his posture loosen.

This had to be a pack thing. He could already smell Zucc here, his scent fresh over the allegedly unscented chemicals that Hank’s cleaning service used and the omnipresent low-lying scent of Hank himself. Hank was always particular about how he let things smell, including his packmates. He didn’t need his space to smell like his pack; he wanted his pack to smell like him.

Chris stretched his head to the side, showing Hank his neck. It was instinct turned to habit now by years of repetition. Sometimes if he was tired he’d find himself doing it in front of the team, and Hank would smile fondly and squeeze his neck, dressing it up with the same friendly affection he used with all of his teammates.

But here, in private, he took his time. It was the same way every time: one hand on Chris’s shoulder, one on his waist, holding him in place while Hank sniffed up and down his neck. Chris could feel Hank’s stubble brushing along his skin as he unceremoniously tucked his nose behind Chris’s ear, sniffing delicately.

Chris closed his eyes and sighed. Apparently Hank was settling in for the long haul, so all he could do was sit back and let it happen.

A sharp nip to his neck had his eyes snapping open, startling a yelp out of him.

He could just barely see Hank smirking as he leaned in to press a quick kiss over the place he’d just bitten.

“Just wanted to make sure you were paying attention,” he said. He seemed smug, which usually meant he was in a playful mood. Which usually meant…

“Come on, living room.”

Chris let himself be guided with a firm hand on his back, having figured out what awaited him.

Zucc was indeed already there, sitting cross-legged on the couch with a familiar oversized blanket piled on his lap. There was a bowl of red grapes sitting on the ottoman in front of him that he pointedly wasn’t touching, and the tv appeared to be showing…nature documentaries, fuck, it really was one of those days. And by the looks of it, it wasn’t even one of the better ones, it was like…fucking geese.

He’d have to text Maz later and let him know what a bullet he was dodging by being in Hartford. Then again, Maz was actually kind of into this sort of thing.

Chris knew that his face was doing something weird again based on the look that Mats was giving him. Well, whatever. Hank was always way too good at reading him anyway, so it wasn’t like he’d be able to hide it from him.

Trying not to sigh, he let himself be pushed down onto the couch. The bowl of grapes was pushed into Chris’s hands while Hank settled in on the middle cushion, grabbing the end of the blanket from Zucc’s lap and spreading it so that it evenly covered all three of them.

Then Hank grabbed the bowl from Chris, set it in his own lap, and spread his arms over the back of the couch, wearing that big, ridiculously handsome toothpaste commercial smile that he always got when he was feeling very, very proud of himself.

Which he usually did, during enforced pack bonding time.

Chris sighed and settled back in against Hank’s arm; Hank rewarded him by gently scratching his nails over Chris’s short hair. That sort of thing, combined with miserably dull documentaries, was usually enough to put Chris to sleep within short order, but Hank didn’t usually mind. Sometimes Chris theorized that it was half of his intent, finding a way to make his packmates nap with him while maintaining the strict boundaries keeping his bedroom off limits.

Whatever. It wasn’t the most comfortable, but since he’d finally invested in an ottoman at least Chris was allowed to put his legs up somewhere instead of being forced to awkwardly fold himself on the couch for hours.

When a grape appeared across his vision, Chris just opened his mouth obligingly. Hank made that weird happy grumble and popped it in his mouth. They weren’t allowed to have snacks outside of the kitchen unless it was on Hank’s terms, and Hank’s ideas of snacks weren’t usually what one would qualify as fun. At least grapes were a step up from the time he wanted them to get hyped about celery sticks.

He closed his eyes as Hank petted over his hair. “That was a beautiful goal you scored in practice today.”

Chris smiled without opening his eyes and flopped his head onto Hank’s shoulder. He snuffled at his neck a little, covering himself in his alpha’s scent and knowing that he could get away with it when Hank was in one of these moods.

Sure enough, Hank just stroked down Chris’s head to his neck and rested his hand there, content.

This wasn’t how Chris had planned to spend his day, but he could roll with the punches. Getting cuddled by his alpha and fed grapes and told he was good at hockey was fine by him any day.

Mats, on the other hand…

To his credit he lasted a good twenty minutes, which was longer than usual. But Mats had a hard limit on how long he could sit still and let Hank cuddle and praise him, and an even harder limit on how long he could watch some British narrator whisper about geese.

Sucked for him that Hank’s limit for the same things didn’t agree with Mats’s.

First came the squirming. Stretching his legs out, wriggling around in his seat, making little sighing noises the whole time. Then he picked at the blanket, clearly wanting to remove it, but freezing up under Hank’s watchful eye.

The turning point was when Hank went to offer him a grape and Mats grimaced. “No, I’m good.”

Chris had never seen two people stare at each other so intensely over a grape before.

Eventually Hank popped it in his own mouth as if he didn’t care at all.

And then his arm went firmly around Zucc’s shoulders, hauling him close to his side so he could press a firm kiss to the top of his head.

It was their usual battle of wills. Mats would try to squirm away, Hank would pretend not to notice and pull him closer. Mats would gripe about the tv show and Hank would cheerfully ignore him. Eventually Mats would squirm loose insisting he needed to go to the bathroom, and when he was inevitably gone for far too long, Hank would sigh and kiss Chris’s forehead and go harass Mats out of the bathroom.

And then he’d drag Mats back to the living room and they would repeat the same process until Hank finally let them order lunch.

The whole process was mildly exhausting, which Chris would proudly assert as the person whose only involvement was to sleepily doze on the couch while being cuddled and fed snacks.

So this time when he felt Mats start to kick off, Chris decided to provide a public service and roused himself from his comfy place against Hank’s shoulder to lean forward, catch Zucc’s eye, and give him a Look.

You know, a Look. One of those Looks that let the other person know that what they were doing was whack and they needed to cut it out, like, now. That sort of Look.

Chris was good at Looks. But Mats wasn’t good at understanding them, because the look he gave Chris in return was like he’d eaten something particularly distasteful and that thing was Chris.

Because he was a good packmate, Chris decided to explain better, with a Look. When Mats started pushing at the blanket again Chris gave him a Look and nodded significantly between Mats and Hank.

Now Mats was rolling his eyes and shaking his head, and actually the whole couch was shaking slightly because Hank’s chest was moving with the force of his laughter.

When they both turned to look at him, Hank shook his head and ate another grape, still smiling. “No, don’t mind me, you can continue.”

He was clearly tickled by the whole thing, in the way that a parent would be by their children doing something that was both cute and incredibly stupid.

It was like they were one big, shitty four year old’s crayon drawing.

Which was probably Hank’s intent, to be honest.

He was a sap like that, underneath his polished suits and alpha dominance.  For all his rules and traditions, Hank was like that stern dad who rode your ass about practicing and working hard and then showed up at your bantam games and was embarrassingly enthusiastic and nudging all the other parents to point out which kid was his because he was just so proud.             

Hank was a strict alpha and at times a demanding one, but you’d be hard-pressed to find an alpha that was more supportive.  And even if Hank’s restrictions were aggravating at times, Chris wouldn’t trade him for the world.

But Zucc leaning over to poke him in the forehead and tell him to “move his stupid weird face”? He could do without that one.             

Even if it made Hank laugh and hug them both.             

So, maybe enforced couch cuddling time wasn’t so bad. That didn’t mean Chris was going to stop complaining about it.             

He had a reputation to uphold, after all.


	69. Avalanche: Crush

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original note: "I am providing this with zero context, other than that I produced this verbal refuse in about half an hour. This isn’t entirely crack but it’s a close cousin to it."
> 
> Tyson is chapter 69. I think he'd like that.
> 
> 2/8/19

“That hit was so fucking sexy,” Tyson sighed. He clutched his pillow further to his chest and ate another spoonful of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.

Nate glanced up at the screen and then gave him some pretty impressive side-eye, even if he knew that Tyson couldn’t see it. Tyson was a weird dude on a good day, which was cool, because Nate could be weird too. But for all of his eccentricities, Tyson didn’t usually sigh dreamily over a highlight clip of Radko Gudas checking Antoine Roussel into the boards in the game between the Flyers and Canucks.

Well. Plenty of guys wanted to check Antoine Roussel, so it wasn’t an  _un_ attractive quality.

“That’s, uh, that’s what gets you going now, eh?” If Tyson had the hots for Gudas, Nate wasn’t going to be an unsupportive bro. Even though he was pretty sure that Gudas was like, married or something, so this was bound to end in heartbreak.

Whatever. As long as it was someone outside the team this time so they didn’t have a repeat of the Gabe Situation, Nate didn’t care who Tyson was crushing on.

Tyson sighed again, sinking deeper into the couch and listing sideways so he was propped against Nate’s shoulder. Nate put his arm around him automatically, and Tyson rolled so that he could nuzzle into Nate’s shoulder. His ice cream, of course, remained unscathed.

“He pressed me up against the boards once,” Tyson muttered into the fabric of Nate’s sweatshirt. “He smelled so fucking good, I thought I was going to die.”

Hockey players pretty much universally smelled like B.O. and whatever variant of body spray (Axe, mostly Axe) that they tried to use to cover it up. In the middle of a game, some of the worst guys were enough to make your eyes water. So while Nate could fully believe that someone’s scent on the ice was noxious enough to make you want to curl up and die, he’d never heard it described as “good.”

He pressed a palm over Tyson’s forehead, just to be safe. His temperature felt normal, and Tyson nuzzled up into his palm like an oversized cat, the same way he always did, until Nate started to pet his hair.

Tyson sighed again. “I wanted to just like, bite him. Which is so fucking rude, we’ve never even gone on a date, that’s way too forward. Plus, neither of us is French, so I can’t like, play it off as a cultural thing, y'know?”

“No.”

Never once in Nate’s life had he ever considered biting anyone, but if he were to decide to bite a hockey player, it wouldn’t be Radko Gudas. Radko Gudas wasn’t even in the top ten players on the Philadelphia Flyers who Nate would want to bite.

But Tyson never really needed anyone else’s input when he was in one of these moods.

“I can’t even talk to him. I tried but it was like, he was already skating off by the time I remembered words and that’s probably for the best because all I could think about was asking him about his conditioner which, like, that’s a question I should probably still get the answer to but it’s not, like, my primary concern right now.”

Nate was about to remind him that the remainder of his ice cream was melting when Tyson stuffed the rest of it into his mouth in a huge, disgusting bite. Never let it be said that Tyson Barrie didn’t have a good handle on his ice cream situation at any given moment.

“He’s just so fucking hot,” Tyson groaned. He hadn’t actually swallowed yet, so his mouth was still full of ice cream. Nate knew it was serious then, because Tyson didn’t let anything interrupt him when he was eating unless it was really serious.

“Uh…I mean, if he’s single, then I guess you could ask him out?”

Tyson groaned and buried his face in Nate’s shoulder again.

“Don’t be stupid, Nathan, he smells single but that doesn’t mean I can just, like, come on to him! There’s a protocol here!”

“Right. Where you…sniff him? And tell him that his hockey makes you hot?”

Tyson abruptly sat up so that he could stare Nate directly in the eyes. He looked a little wild, and Nate was tempted to check his temperature again, just to be sure.

“I saw him score a goal once, and I almost fucking cried. That slap shot, Jesus Christ, imagine how strong he is. I bet he could like, take out an adult buck all on his own.”

Annnnnd this conversation had just taken three unexpected turns in three sentences, and Nate was unequipped to deal with any of them.

But he was a good friend, so he stuffed his own ice cream in his mouth and hummed encouragingly, trying to ignore the many questions he had about how he’d never heard Tyson mention hunting before.

“I have to compete with that,” Tyson was saying, really getting into it now. “I have to show him that I have something to bring to the table, because a guy like that, he’s a fucking catch, y'know? He’s gotta have, like, everyone howling for him, he’s so hot and like,  _capable_. God, his hands are huge, he’s probably got pads like a bear. And his hair’s so nice, you know his coat has to be amazing. I bet it’s soft.”

Nate frowned. “You don’t talk about my coat like that.”

His mom got him a Sherpa fleece lined coat for Christmas and it was the softest thing Nate had ever felt in his life. He’d made Tyson touch it multiple times, just to gloat.

Tyson cooed and patted his cheek. “Sweetie, you’re bald. You’re still my Dogg, but you’re so fucking bald.”

If Nate reached a hand up just to double check that yes, his hair was still there, it was nobody’s business but his own, especially because Tyson was off again.

“He’s like, quiet, but he’s so steady too. Like, he could be dominant but he’s choosing not to be? And that’s almost hotter than being dominant at all because there’s so much control there. And sometimes I think I need some of that control in my life, right? If I want to settle down?”

Whoa, whoa, wait, no. The last time Tyson had talked about an opposing player and wanting to “settle down” had not gone well.

“Is this going to be another Kreider thing?” Nate asked carefully. “Because you were super bummed after that.”

Tyson made a face and rabbit-punched him in the arm.

“Don’t talk about that, that was nothing. I’m over that now. Besides, Vancouver’s Swedish goalie isn’t going to like, come in and cockblock me – or at least I don’t think he will, I haven’t really checked recently but I think the Sedins are still on top there even though they retired? Oh, God, but imagine having Henrik Sedin cockblock you, he’d just like, frown disappointedly with his clone doing the same thing right next to him, that’d be so weird and sad.”

Nate shoveled the rest of his ice cream in his mouth, because even if it was melting, there was the slightest chance that it would give him enough brain freeze to wake up from this conversation.

But he didn’t get brain freeze, and Tyson was still talking about getting cockblocked by the Sedin twins.

“Hold on,” Nate said, sitting his empty bowl on the table next to him. “What does Radko Gudas have to do with the Sedins?”

Generally, Nate took objection to Tyson looking at him like he was an idiot, because at the very least, Tyson and Nate had achieved equal levels of idiocy throughout their friendship. Tyson had no place to look so judgmental.

“Who the hell is talking about Radko Gudas?”

“Uh…you?”

“Why would I- oh, ew, fuck,  _no_ , he’s like, married or something, and he smells like a ham sandwich, why would I want him? I mean granted his beard is killer, I’ll give him that, but that doesn’t mean I want to climb him like a tree.”

Nate mouthed the words  _climb him like a tree_ , hoping they would make more sense that way.

They didn’t.

“Then who the hell are you talking about?” Nate whined.

Tyson made a face like Nate was being particularly slow and he didn’t like it. “Chris Tanev, who else would I be talking about?”

“The fuck- why would you be talking about him at all!?”

“Because I want him to fuck me and also maybe marry me and have puppies together?” Tyson spoke like this all made complete sense to anyone who wasn’t an idiot, i.e., Nate.

“Oh my God, dude.”

Nate covered his face and slumped sideways, letting the dip in the seat near the arm of the couch start to swallow him up. Maybe if he just buried himself there, when he finally came back to the surface the world would start making sense again.

A heavy weight dropped gracelessly across his chest, forcing a wheeze out of him. Entirely uncaring, Tyson pressed his nose to Nate’s neck anyway. It was cold, and he tried to squirm away, but for a shorter guy Tyson still wasn’t actually that light, and he gleefully snuffled at Nate’s neck like the freak he was.

“Get off me,” Nate groaned, trying and failing to roll away. “Go, like, hump Tanev’s leg.”

He yelped when Tyson pinched his arm. “That would be rude. I’d have to ask him out first, and to ask him out I have to die of embarrassment first, so like, you see my problem.”

“You’re  _my_  problem.”

“I’m the best damn thing that’s ever happened to you.” Tyson was digging his chin into Nate’s shoulder the way he usually did when he was settling in. Nate hadn’t really planned to spend his evening this way, but he preemptively turned them so he could at least lay properly with his legs up on the couch. Tyson, naturally, had no issues lying directly on top of him.

They were quiet for a few moments as they resituated. Nate ended up with his hand on Tyson’s back, rubbing slowly between his shoulder blades while Tyson made those weird grumbling sounds of his and nosed around the neckline of Nate’s shirt.

“So Tanev, huh?” Nate finally said.

Tyson huffed and closed his eyes. “Ugh, I know, I’m hopeless.”

“Who says it’s hopeless? You haven’t even asked him out.”

He didn’t appreciate how Tyson kept pinching him. “Dude, what the fuck?”

“I can’t just  _ask him out_ , I told you, there’s protocol! I have to…I have to  _pursue_  him.” Tyson’s eyes were suddenly lit with that sort of unholy glee he usually only expressed when he heard the ice cream truck coming.

“Tys…”

“No, shh, I’m thinking. This is great. I got it. I know what I’m gonna do. He’ll never see it coming.”

“Because you’ve never even spoken to him before?” Nate drawled. This time he grabbed Tyson’s wrist before Tyson could try to pinch him again.

Tyson was unperturbed.

“ _Because_  I’m going to court the fuck out of him.”

Nate had questions. Nate had a lot of questions, and confusion, and he wanted to give Tyson a dictionary to make sure he understood half of the words coming out of his own mouth.

But Nate also prided himself on being a supportive, nonjudgmental bro. He’d never judged Tyson for his weird taste in men before, so why should he start now?

“That’s nice,” he sighed, patting Tyson on the back.

Tyson made one of his happier grumbles and nuzzled against Nate’s neck.

Well. Never let it be said that Nate didn’t take wearing the A for his team seriously.

“…Can I tell EJ about this?”

“Fuck no.”

Worth a shot.


	70. Avalanche/Rangers: The Kreider Thing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2/13/19

Tyson was no stranger to ill-advised crushes. His mother had always told him that he fell in love too easily, giving his heart away every other week to the next pretty smile he saw.

His teammates told him he was just horny as fuck.

Tyson liked to think he was somewhere between the two, a hopeless romantic with a healthy libido. But it was true that he’d fallen for a few people in his time that he knew from the start would never work out.

Take Gabe, for example. There were so many reasons why Tyson and Gabe could never be together: Gabe was too hot for him, Gabe was his captain and his teammate, Gabe was straight, Gabe was in a happy committed relationship, Gabe was a human.

All perfectly valid reasons why they would never work out, some of them a little more pressing than the others, but Tyson’s heart still wanted what it wanted, and in the case of Gabe, his dick had been in total agreement with his heart.

It had taken a long time for Tyson to get over Gabe, for a given value of “get over.” He still said embarrassing shit about Gabe’s hair and his face and his general personage on the regular, but at least now it didn’t have the quality of feeling like he was word vomiting his deepest feelings just to have people laugh at him. Gabe was still freakishly beautiful, but Tyson had been able to resign himself to the fact that Gabe was someone he could admire, but never have.

Having crushes on humans wasn’t the greatest idea for a werewolf anyway, but Tyson’s heart wanted what it wanted.

Sometimes, it did him a solid and gave him a crush on another wolf.

That was both a blessing and a curse, because while it meant that he had a crush on someone who was culturally attainable, it also meant he had a crush on someone who would be able to scent his attraction to them. And once someone was attainable, the more his heart did stupid things like leaping in his chest and telling him he had a real chance with them and that he should talk to them, and when he talked to them he pretty much torpedoed any chances of them wanting to be within ten square miles of him.

His mother told him that his rambling was charming. His teammates told him it was hilarious.

Tyson thought it was neither of these things, but he still couldn’t keep his mouth shut. And he couldn’t stop his heart from getting attached to everyone he saw and making him the thirstiest fucker in all of Colorado.

Usually Tyson limited his crushes to moping on Nate’s shoulder about how stupidly hot someone was, and sometimes Nate would convince him to talk to his crush, at which point Tyson would say something embarrassing and most likely scare them off, and then he’d be moping on Nate’s shoulder again but with more ice cream to cope with the pain.

Rinse and repeat three days later.

It wasn’t the healthiest of cycles, maybe, but it was Tyson’s old familiar friend at this point.

And so he wasn’t expecting it when his crush on Chris Kreider was a little more…intense.

He groaned loudly, just to make sure that Nate could hear him as he keeled over sideways on his couch. Nate was placidly unmoved, but he did let Tyson put his feet in his lap, patting his ankles companionably.

“I just want to like, stare at his dumb smile and listen to his dumb voice talk about dumb things with his dumb face.”

“You should totally get married,” Nate said. He didn’t look up from his phone, so Tyson thought it was perfectly acceptable to kick him in the gut.

Bad idea, but then, nobody came to Tyson for good ideas.

“Oh shit, dude your abs are like granite,” he hissed.

Nate looked up from his phone for that one, clearly pleased. He patted Tyson’s ankles again. “Thanks, babe.”

“You’re welcome. Seriously though, Kreider’s like, both hot and wholesome? And that’s such a dangerous combination, you know I like a boy I could take home to my mom.”

“You just like boys.”

“I mean. Yes, but that’s irrelevant because I like  _this_  boy. Guy. Man. Holy shit, have you seen his thighs?”

Nate squinted at him, which was better than staring at his phone, at least. “I can’t say I’ve ever really checked out Chris Kreider’s thighs.”

He waited patiently as Tyson pulled up a photo that he had saved to his phone, which totally wasn’t creepy because he was possibly in love.

“Oh damn. Okay, yeah, get it, dude.”

“ _Right?_ ” Tyson looked at the photo again as he took his phone back before he sighed, pressing his phone to his chest. “This one’s bad, man. Like, he’s almost sort of attainable?”

Nate hummed. “He makes a lot of weird faces and says a lot of dumb shit too. That’s what you do.”

“Oh my God  _I know_ , it’s like, a sign or something.”

Plus he was a wolf, and he had like, half a foot on Tyson, which was like his kryptonite. He couldn’t have dreamed up a more perfect guy if he tried.

“You could try asking him out?” Nate suggested. “I mean, we don’t play them for like…”

He squinted at his phone. “They come here next month. You could ask him then? Worst he could say is no.”

That wasn’t true at all – they both knew there were a lot worse things that could happen if you hit on an opposing player in the most closeted league in North America. But the problem with having Nate’s enabling assistance was that Tyson started to get confident, and when Tyson got confident, Tyson got stupid.

And what Tyson did in New York was very, very stupid.

If Kreider had been anyone else on any other team in the league, maybe Tyson’s methods would have had a chance. If Tyson had even, like, found a way to flirt with Kreider away from the arena, he might have been able to make it work.

But Tyson’s budding romance was killed in the cradle, because he forgot about the alpha of the Rangers pack.

In his defense, he hadn’t had an alpha since Iggy left, and before that he’d just been flying solo, the only wolf in Colorado’s system. Some would say he had a bit of a loose upbringing when it came to decorum.

“You know, I was freeballing it on my own before you came along,” he’d told Iggy once.

Iggy had choked, even though he wasn’t eating anything. “I think you mean freewheeling.”

“I know what I said.”

Part of the expectation in a young wolf leaving home at an early age to play hockey was that they would get the rest of their cultural education through their hockey team’s pack.

Tyson didn’t really…get any of that. At all.

And so he wasn’t really good at remembering some of the rules that came with deciding you wanted to ask another wolf out.

Granted, a lot of people didn’t really swear by the traditional ways anymore, choosing to follow along with the laxer customs that humans had developed along the years, but.

Well.

Literally every wolf in the league knew that Henrik Lundqvist was nothing if not a staunch traditionalist in how he ran his pack.

And Henrik Lundqvist’s expectations were not that a strange wolf would approach one of his wolves, without a single word to him, and start throwing out flirtatious scents all over the place.

Tyson was a little too caught up in Kreider at first to notice the hole he was digging himself. Well, the game was distracting too.

But mostly Kreider.

Fuck, he was so  _big_  in person. Tyson would readily admit he liked the idea of someone who could just like, lift him up and bench him.

There was a special sort of thrill in checking Kreider into the boards, a league-approved excuse to press up on him, maybe for a little longer than was necessary.

“You’re a fucking specimen,” Tyson told him, before he regretfully pushed himself away from Kreider and chased after the puck.

Okay, he would openly admit that wasn’t the best way to start flirting with someone. But hey, he was being honest, and it distracted Kreider enough that Tyson was able to force a turnover, so Tyson was chalking that up as a win.

At the next commercial break he just so happened to skate in Kreider’s direction, telling himself it was to further The Plan and not just because he wanted to smell him again.

“Hey,” he said as he drew nearer, tapping Kreider’s shins with his skates. Kreider looked over at him, face pinching into that stupid confused frown of his that made Tyson weak in the knees.

“Can I help you?” Kreider asked, looking mildly perturbed.

“Just wanted to let you know that you have the body of a Greek god and I’m like, here for that. If that’s what you’re here for.”

Zuccarello, who was clearly hovering to eavesdrop because there wasn’t a wolf in the league who wasn’t a huge fucking gossip, made some gross snorting noise and covered his face with his hand. Tyson, ever the professional, refused to honor that with a response, keeping his eyes on Kreider.

Kreider looked like his brain had temporarily offlined and he was waiting for it to reboot. His mouth moved soundlessly a few times, and Tyson took some time to enjoy the tinge of pink on his cheeks.

“Think about it,” he said. He patted Kreider’s arm and then skated back to his own teammates. He was too smug to notice that he was passing New York’s goaltenders conferring at the bench, or the way that one of them tracked him across the ice.

When he got back to Colorado’s bench he met Nate’s outstretched glove with a fist bump.

“Locked it down?” Nate asked.

“Always do,” Tyson replied, which they both knew was a bald-faced lie but it  _felt_ true, and that was all that mattered.

Z skated by, face looking like he’d tasted something foul.

“Brutes, you gonna get eaten,” he warned. He gave Tyson a firm smack on the ass with his stick to enforce this.

Tyson sighed. “God, I hope so.”

It wasn’t until after the game that he realized that maybe Z wasn’t talking about a good kind of eating, or Kreider being involved in said eating.

But Tyson was a dumb boy, and so he was actually surprised to exit the dressing room after the game – a 3-1 win,  _yeah son_  – and find Henrik Lundqvist standing there in a crisp black suit, hands folded neatly behind his back. He looked ridiculously fashionable in shined leather shoes, a long wool coat, and a grey scarf that looked amazingly soft and just as expensive.

“Tyson Barrie?” he asked, as if he didn’t actually know who Tyson was, which, okay, that one stung a little bit. Tyson wasn’t the most famous guy in the league but he’d been around long enough he’d hope that other players would have some idea who he was.

“Yeah?”

Lundqvist nodded to himself and held out a hand. “I’m Henrik Lundqvist.”

It was only because he was still completely confused about what was happening that Tyson kept from saying something like “yeah, I know.”

And then he shook Lundqvist’s hand and oh,  _shit_.

Tyson had known alphas in his life – his grandmother was their family alpha, and his aunt was next in line to take over, and the both of them could shame him into silence with a look. He’d had Iggy for the past few years, the consummate professional who seemed like he was born an alpha or born a dad or maybe both, with the way he could make you feel guilty for doing something before you’d even done it because you didn’t want to disappoint him.

But he’d never been so viscerally overcome by the presence of an alpha before. It wasn’t just how Lundqvist dressed – fuck, he took dress for success pretty damn seriously and he wore it  _well_  – it was the way he carried himself, that quiet confidence like he didn’t need to be flashy because everyone would just look at him and  _know_ -

Tyson already felt ready to roll over and show his neck, and that wasn’t counting how he smelled so fucking dominant Tyson wanted to look away and melt into a puddle and tuck a tail he didn’t have right now.

“I’d like to speak to you for a moment,” Lundqvist said, flashing a bland, magazine-perfect smile with those white, white teeth of his, and Tyson couldn’t keep his eyes from zeroing in on those canines, suddenly remembering Z’s warning.

Fuck, he’d still go for it, even though Lundqvist would undoubtedly eat him alive, one hundred percent. Unless he thought that Tyson’s dad bod was too unhealthy to eat, which would kind of hurt, but Tyson wouldn’t blame him for it. He probably wasn’t very appetizing.

Lundqvist was still watching him expectantly with those eyes that Tyson couldn’t quite meet, and oh, shit, he was waiting for a reply.

“Oh yeah, sure, just, uh…we’ll go down here.”

He tore his hand away from Lundqvist’s, belatedly realizing that handshake had been way too long, and led him down the hall to an empty room. Lundqvist followed placidly, with the walk of someone who was never led anywhere but just so happened to decide to walk in the same direction that Tyson was.

If Tyson was leading himself to his own death, he was going to be so pissed.

It was Nate’s turn to pay for ice cream after the game.

Once they were in the room with the door closed, which suddenly felt like a possibly poor idea, Tyson made sure he was at a respectful few-yards-away-as-far-from-Lundqvist-as-possible distance before he said, “So, uh, what can I do for you?”

Lundqvist’s smile wasn’t comforting, but it really was beautiful. No wonder that man was hired to sell anti-dandruff shampoo.

“I will preface this by saying that I am going to be lenient, because I recognize that you don’t presently have an alpha to guide you.”

If the words weren’t foreboding enough, the way Lundqvist clasped his hands in front of himself and took a step closer certainly did nothing to calm Tyson’s rapidly fluttering pulse. Neither was the way that Lundqvist tilted his head to the side, curious, interested – as if scenting prey for the hunt.

“I noticed that you’ve taken an interest in one of my wolves. And I’ve also noticed that you decided to express this interest by approaching him directly, in the middle of a game,  _in front of me_ , to make lewd comments and cover him in your scent.”

“I wouldn’t say it was – oh.” Tyson tried to step back further but he hit the wall, and Lundqvist just kept advancing until he was looming over Tyson, until their three-inch height difference felt like three feet.

Lundqvist was still smiling, and Tyson wasn’t sure he’d ever been so scared in his life.

“Let me be perfectly clear,” Lundqvist said, his tone light, controlled, terrifying. “My pack belongs to me. My pack smells like me because they belong to me. I do not appreciate anyone believing that they can usurp my claim over my pack.”

“I wasn’t trying to-”

The snarl that Lundqvist gave him was easily one of the hottest and most terrifying things Tyson had ever heard in his life.

“You will listen when I am speaking to you.”

Tyson was already nodding, even though Lundqvist wasn’t waiting for him to agree. His back was to the wall, and his chin was already tilting up and to the side, flashing Lundqvist his neck, trying to make himself as non-threatening as possible.

“You are not going to speak to my pack. You are not going to approach my pack. You are not going to so much as  _look_  at my pack without my express permission.”

He put his hand on Tyson’s neck, using it to guide his head and make Tyson look him in the eyes, and Tyson flinched at both the touch and his gaze. He’d never had an alpha touch his neck before who wasn’t trying to claim him as part of his pack. It felt scary and unsettling and he was so fucking alone, no alpha of his own to defend him, just the most powerful alpha he’d ever met holding him by his neck with his teeth so close to his throat and his eyes so icily cool and unreadable.

“Do you understand me?”

All Tyson could think about was the hand on his throat, weight not crushing but so unyielding it couldn’t possibly be ignored, the thumb pressing just this side of too firm against his trachea. The hand squeezed tighter and Tyson’s eyes shot wide. He could feel his heart pounding erratically and there was no way that Lundqvist couldn’t feel it too, against the palm of his hand. No way that he couldn’t scent Tyson’s fear clouding thick in the air.

“Look at me,” Lundqvist said gently, reasonably, and Tyson couldn’t do anything but follow his commands.

Lundqvist’s expression was still unsettling in how placid and calm it was, at odds with the hand pressed inexorably against Tyson’s neck.

“Do you understand me?” Lundqvist repeated.

Words wouldn’t come to Tyson; he wouldn’t have been able to form the words even if he could think of any, but he did try to nod with the limited movement he had, his chin bumping against Lundqvist’s hand.

When Lundqvist smiled again, Tyson flinched, a full-body motion he couldn’t avoid. The grip on his throat held fast.

“Good.”

Slowly, far too slowly, Lundqvist released the pressure on Tyson’s neck and carefully pulled his hand away.

Tyson didn’t gasp for breath because he was too afraid to breathe, eyes pinned on Lundqvist’s hand.

When that same hand moved towards his face, Tyson couldn’t keep himself from squeezing his eyes closed, bracing for a hit.

It never came.

Instead, the tips of Lundqvist’s fingers brushed ever so gently against Tyson’s cheek, glancing over his jaw and then resting there, waiting for Tyson to open his eyes again.

When he finally chanced a look, Lundqvist was still staring at him impassively, but it felt…different.

“You should be more careful,” he said, his tone never once changing from damnably calm and casual. “You’re vulnerable without an alpha. Other wolves aren’t as understanding as I am.”

His thumb rubbed over Tyson’s jaw, and Tyson still couldn’t breathe, his lungs burning and paralyzed.

“I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you, Tyson.”

Then he dropped his hand, turned around and left the room, never once breaking a stride or looking back.

Tyson slid slowly to the floor, body shaking with unused adrenaline and smelling of sweat and fear. He’d have to take another shower after this if he wanted to avoid broadcasting to every wolf in the metro area that he was scared shitless.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, hand pressed against his throat as if to remind himself that it was intact, forcing himself to breathe evenly and trying to ignore the hitch in each inhale, the way he shuddered with every exhale.

It was long enough that his legs stopped feeling so much like jelly and his sweat had started to cool uncomfortably, and so he finally hauled himself to his feet and carefully made his way to the parking lot.

He wasn’t expecting Nate to be leaning against his car – he’d completely forgotten that they’d driven in together.

“Hey man, where have you been?” Nate said, pushing off the car when he saw Tyson approaching. “I’ve been waiting forever, DQ’s gonna be closing soon – are you okay?”

Tyson thrusted his keys in Nate’s direction, barely waiting for Nate to clumsily take them from his hand before he went around to the passenger side of the car and poured himself in.

“You want me to drive?” From the way Nate made it sound, that was more unsettling than if Tyson had just puked on his feet.

“Yeah. I’m, uh, not feeling too good.” He didn’t know what he was actually feeling, but “good” was definitely not it.

Nate made a sympathetic noise as he climbed into the driver’s side and started the car.

“The Kreider thing?”

Tyson winced and shook his head, leaning against the window and closing his eyes. “Not a thing anymore, Dogg.”

He didn’t feel like trying to interpret it into Nate-safe words, but luckily, Nate didn’t ask. He hummed sadly and reached over to squeeze Tyson’s shoulder.

“Sorry, man. Well, nothing an Oreo blizzard can’t fix, eh?”

Tyson smiled, forehead still pressed against the window. Even if he and Nate didn’t always share the same vocabulary or the same worldview, they always understood the language of ice cream.

“It’s still your turn to pay,” Tyson said.

Nate’s sound of outrage and ensuing argument were clearly played up for Tyson’s benefit, but Tyson gladly let himself be sucked in to debating who owed whom for their last trip to DQ.

He spent the rest of the night trying to shake the feeling of a hand at his throat.

And he never once let himself dream of having a crush on a New York Rangers player again.

**Author's Note:**

> If you have any questions about this series, you can leave a comment here or message me on [Tumblr](https://swedishgoaliemafia.tumblr.com/).


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